What Alberta COVID Data Says

Vincent J. Curtis

30 Sept 21

You can learn a lot by reading well-presented data.  Take, for instance, Alberta’s COVID data page.  Figure 14 shows the tracking of COVID hospitalizations and ICU admissions since April 1^st, 2020; while figure 16 shows the daily COVID death count.

You can clearly see the waves of the pandemic.  The second wave, which ran roughly between November 1st and March 1^st, was the worst, with more deaths and hospitalizations occurring in that period than in wave three.  ICU admissions peaked at under 200 in the second wave.  The death count of wave two is much higher than wave three, and still worse than the current wave four.

There was no deep trough between the second and third waves, but the deepest part of the valley was around March 15^th.  The third wave can be said to begin April 1^st and ending August 1^st.  Jason Kenny and Deena Henshaw were both severely criticized by Federal poohbahs Dr. Theresa Tam and Minister Patty Hajdu and the Karens in the media for ending Alberta COVID restrictions too early, on July 1^st.  The data plainly shows the poohbahs were wrong.  The tail end of the third wave had numbers that simply didn’t justify continued lockdown, being their lowest in nine months.  You can’t tell people that restrictions need to continue to protect the health care system when the system is plainly not under stress.

The trend in hospitalizations and ICU admissions continued downward for another month, until August 1^st.  If the Federal government had projections showing an upturn in Alberta’s COVID problem within the incubation period of the virus, they would have been wrong.  Alberta’s July break did not incubate the fourth wave.

Hospitalization began rising again into a fourth wave about mid-August, and shows a taller peak at the end of September than the peak of the second wave, which occurred January 1^st.  ICU admissions have risen to a higher level than in the second wave.  Deaths in the four wave are lower than in the second, but worse than in the third waves.

Given the shapes of the curves of waves two and three, wave four ought to be peaking at or before October 15th, and ICU admissions should cap out at just below 300.

When you compare the data to the political proclamations from all quarters about the need for lockdowns, passports, and even vaccinations, you can see that a lot of emperors have no clothes.  The pandemic ebbs and flows in accordance with factors the “experts” have yet to figure out, and any mandate or restriction of any kind amounts to a kind of thumb-sucking order.

Thumb-sucking does nothing practical, but can make some people feel better.

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Orange Shirt Day: Progressives damn their own shamelessly

Vincent J. Curtis

29 Sept 21

RE: It will take more than a federal holiday to properly mark Orange Shirt Day.  Op-ed by Fred Youngs.  Hamilton Spectator 29 Sept 21.

The people that violently tore down Hamilton’s statue to Canada’s first Prime Minister, and then took a grinder to the statue’s face, now say that reconciliation will take a lot more from us to happen.  Apparently, they don’t know what the word “reconciliation” means.

A progressive idea of the 19^th century was to require the education of Indian children as white children were: compulsory, in school, and between certain ages.  Education might help ensure that the 19^th century privatives would survive in some form the onslaught of European settlement.  This remained the progressive position until, oh, 1969, when Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s Liberal government released the “Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy” which proposed abolishing Indian status altogether.

In 2013, Justin Trudeau formally anathamized his father’s Indian Policy.  Condemnation of all those progressives who had a hand, however remote, on educating Indians is now taking on Stalinist purge proportions.  Progressives today now shamelessly ask for more money and more power to repent for the misuses of money and power by the progressives of yesterday.  We’re supposed to trust their judgement!

Progressives believe that with enough money and power they can bring about a new man and a new woman and heaven on earth through change of social institutions.  With residential schools as an example of their work, at what point do the rest of realize they’re wrong?

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Anti-Semitism destroyed Annamie Paul

Vincent J. Curtis

28 Sept 21

Yesterday, Green Party leader Annamie Paul resigned as leader of Canada’s Green Party, saying her term of leadership was “the worst year of my life.”  It’s funny that the progressive media isn’t hinting at racism or sexism as an underlying reason for Paul’s demise, her being a Black woman and all.  Could be that, being at the leading edge of left-wing progressivism, the Greens are immune from such criticisms?  But the media all know, and aren’t saying, that the real reason is the anti-Semitism in the party that made her life miserable.

Paul is also Jewish, and she couldn’t abide by the pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel stance of members of her caucus, such as Jenica Atwin, who defect to the Liberals, and other leading members of the Green Party.

Anti-Semitism runs through the International Left like a social disease.  However politically unacceptable anti-Semitism is, the Labour Party in Britain is openly anti-Semitic.  The Democrat Party in the United States demonstrated a powerful streak of anti-Semitism exists in it, and that exploded into view at the 2012 party convention.  When a voice-vote was called on a resolution to amend the party’s platform to include language referring to Jerusalem and God, the no vote was deafening.

"In addition, President Obama recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and our party's platform should as well," ran the appeal.

Not getting the response he wanted, the convention chairman called for the vote again.  Again, the voice vote was negative.  After three failed attempts, the chairman simply declared that the aye’s had it, and moved on.

The political Left in Canada is also imbued with a rancid anti-Semitism.

Progressives have no doubt as to their moral purity, and it troubles them not a whit to harass Annamie Paul in a way they would condemn the same being done by conservatives or the otherwise unenlightened.  Progressives are too morally pure to be guilty of racism or sexism, and being anti-Semitic is not a moral defect in their eyes.  Quite the opposite.  The chic position is to be pro-Palestinian.

It should now be clear, that that moralistic, high-sounding rhetoric of the Greens in Canada is heavily tinctured with anti-Semitism.

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Why there’s little trust in medical professionals these days

Vincent J. Curtis

28 Sept 21

How can you trust a medical profession that vaccinates a guy against a disease he’s just recovering from?

On September 27, the CBC ran a story about Bernie Cook, a 40ish-looking Calgary man who spent time in and ICU recovering from COVID.  Mr. Cook had not been vaccinated before he caught the disease.  The intent of the story was to encourage people to get vaccinated, or else you could end up like Bernie.

In the course of the story, they showed a still photo of Bernie, nearly recovered in hospital, getting a vaccination shot with the narration: “Like most people in Alberta ICUs, Bernie Cook was unvaccinated when he went in.  He’s been immunized now, and has a message for Albertans who aren’t.”

Mr. Cook just had a severe case of COVID, and they’re vaccinating him afterwards?  The horses have already left the corral!  Don’t they know that he has more and better immunity against COVID, having just had it, than vaccination provides?  They were vaccinating the immune!  These professionals were acting like Pavlov’s dog: see arm, stick arm!

How can you trust professionals that appear to know less than the man on the street? 

There are all kinds of studies showing how short term vaccination is as compared to the immunity from having had the disease.  (In Israel, they’re up to 4 shots before being considered “fully vaccinated.”)

If Alberta health care is “teetering on collapse” it’s because of incompetence and mismanagement by the medical professionals.

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Here’s a link to the 2:21 minute story: Patient describes ICU stay as Alberta doctors call for ‘fire break’ lockdown - YouTube

COVID is all politics all the time

Vincent J. Curtis

27 Sept 21

RE:  Ontario virus rates lower than expected, experts say.  Hamilton Spectator news article 27 Sept 21.

The “experts” in the medical community are making headlines today and destroying their credibility for the next time.  Take Dr. Zain Chagla and Dr. Kieran Moore, who pretend to know why Alberta is in a health care crisis, but have no explanation as to why Ontario didn’t follow the modelling.

Some facts about Alberta’s “crisis.”  Alberta hospitals are not busy.  But for COVID, they’d be dying for patients.  As at this writing, there are 1061 COVID patients in all of Alberta’s hospitals, and 243 are ICU patients.  Since Alberta, a province of five million, has only 180 ICU beds set aside for COVID, operating rooms have been converted for ICU care to handle the overflow.  Why management decided to take out operating rooms goes unexplained.  Why hospital staff otherwise unoccupied aren’t transferred to ICU care goes unexplained.

Alberta’s “crisis” lies in the management – or mismanagement – of its hospitals.  People aren’t dropping dead in the streets in Alberta.  No media wants to explore the relationship between the medical associations and the Kenny government, which have been in tough negotiations for two years now.  Could it be that individual doctors are making decisions that are intended to embarrass the Kenny government?? (Perish the thought!)  Could it be that progressive media is in league with the idea of embarrassing the “right-wing” Kenny government? (Perish the thought!)

Albertans didn’t throw all caution to the wind with the ending of COVID restrictions – which were no longer justifiable on the basis of the numbers.  A lot of people continued to wear masks.  Social distancing was common.  The largest gatherings in Alberta during summer are rodeos, which are mostly outdoor events.  The Calgary Stampede attracted half a million people over ten days, and a total of 71 COVID cases were traced to it.  And that happened in early July.

Chagla and Moore can’t explain why Ontario’s worst-case scenario isn’t happening, and they don’t know what effect Alberta’s lifting of restrictions had on the actual behavior of Albertans.  But it’s just so easy to blame a “right-wing” government for its policies leading to disaster.

When doctors are still talking about mask mandates and lockdowns, you know they’re talking through their hats.  Mask mandates did nothing to control waves two and three, and neither did lockdowns.  Lockdowns produced a public health crisis of their own in Alberta, namely opioid overdoses and syphilis, which is one reason why Alberta Health decided to change focus from COVID uber alles to COVID as one of several public health problems.

With COVID, it’s all politics all the time, with doctors favoring the side of tyranny.

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Stop complaining you media wusses!

Vincent J. Curtis

26 Sept 21

RE: Opinion piece by Paul Berton, Spectator Editor, and Editorial of Saturday, 25 Sept 21 The Hamilton Spectator.

Paul Berton needs to stop complaining about attacks on the media.  The Spectator, for one, doesn’t get half the abuse it deserves.  The media is so saturated by progressivism, you can’t trust their view of reality.

Take the editorial claim that “Alberta’s nightmare is entirely due to the government that put its ideology ahead of public health and safety.”  And “Had [vaccine passports been implemented] in a more timely fashion, thousands of lives might have been saved…”

Thousands?

Dozens, maybe, in the latest wave but you don’t know that they wouldn’t have got COVID regardless of a passport system or not.  Alberta has an 82 percent vaccination rate, and the average age of death is 79.  (Despite the 82 percent vaccination rate, Alberta’s fourth wave is worse than the third, second, or first!)

Only progressives and Marxist blame “ideology” for Alberta’s “nightmare.”  I blame the virus.

As for ideology, believe me, if Jason Kenny were in any way ideological, Alberta would not have gone full Chicom control freaky like the rest of Canada.  People around here wonder, “What would Ralph Kline do?”  It couldn’t be worse, and at least we’d be free.

What the progressive media can’t come to grips with is that their “experts” are at sea.  Nothing they did worked, and even vaccinations aren’t performing as expected.  Progressives can’t understand that sometimes their experts don’t know, they just pretend to.

Alberta’s real health care crisis is in opioid overdoses and syphilis, caused by excessive lockdown!

Alberta’s fourth wave is worse than Ontario’s not because of vast differences in vaccination rates or other approaches.  It so happens the virus is far more prevalent in Alberta than in Ontario - at the moment!

Stop complaining, media.  You don’t know half of what you think you know, and nobody trusts you anymore.

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None of the media inquire as to the possible political motivations of Alberta’s medical professions who complain in the media about this or that.  Believe me, they have a political agenda.  They’re trying to embarrass the Kenny government as part of their labor negotiations with the government, which have been in tough talks for over two years.  Just perhaps, the agenda of the doctors - to embarrass the Kenny government - coincides with the media desire to embarrass an ostensibly "right-wing" government.  And that's why the media don't check deeper into the game being played before them.

Climate Crazies are like broken records

Vincent J. Curtis

25 Sept 21

RE: How the new government can take a more collaborative approach to climate change.  By Grant Linney (passim)

RE: Towns and cities partner with Universities to confront climate change. By Jessica Blythe.  She is a climate adaptation researcher and associate professor at Brock University’s Environmental Sustainability Research Centre. (passim)

With the election over, climate craziness is back again in full force.  We’re supposed to take the crazies seriously even though they take no account of facts now widely known, and they simply repeat themselves like broken records.

It is widely known that Canada is not the cause of global climate change.

Accounting for only 1.5 percent of world CO2 emissions, Canada ranks behind China, America, India, Russia, Japan, and Germany.  Canada ranks behind Iran, South Korea, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia!

Since Canada is not the cause of global climate change, nothing Canada does can stop the effect of climate change.  So, what to do?

I’ve recommended bracing for impact.  If we’re expecting floods, then let’s spend our money making sure municipal sewer systems can handle the water.  If we’re expecting drought, then let’s make sure our western farmers can irrigate their fields.  And if we’re expecting the sea level to rise, then let’s build a one foot high sea wall to protect the endangered areas.

Let’s not waste our money chasing chimeras (like EVs!).  That would only leave us poor and defenseless when the apocalypse comes.  We need to keep our powder dry, and spend our money wisely.

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Liberal MP troubled the unvaxxed hate Liberals

Vincent J. Curtis

24 Sept 21

RE: MP troubled by anger, vandalism in campaign.  Hamilton Spectator news article 25 Sept 21.

Let’s see if Filomena Tassi MP is able to put two and two together.  About twenty percent of the population – the level of support nationally for the NDP – are unvaccinated, probably by inclination.  The unvaxxed are being vilified everywhere by everyone, and are now segregated by pass laws from participating in much of society.  Her party leader is the foremost advocate of compulsory vaccination, and she’s surprised and troubled by there being a number of people out there who react violently to Liberal campaign workers asking the unvaxxed for their vote?

 The unvaxxed are only doing to solicitous Liberals what the government is doing to them.  Shocked at the violence?  Look in the mirror, honey.  You’re living in a cocoon of smug superiority if you can’t figure it out.

Meanwhile, the progressive campaign against working class white continues.  Hamilton City Hall, flush with cash, will hire no fewer than three experts at $125k a year to enforce “equity, diversity, and inclusion” laws on civic employees.  The principle is that if you’re white, it isn’t equitable or promoting of diversity for you to be included.  Diversity of opinion on this point is forbidden.  It’s a “cultural shift” all right, from Canadian competence to third world confusion.  They can’t handle diversity in vaccination status!

When you’re hiring outside “experts” don’t be surprised if the vegan recommends the removal of all meat from the menu.

The progressive madness that’s overtaken America is already here.

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Walking and spitting tobacco juice

Vincent J. Curtis

23 Sept 21

RE: How COVID is devastating public health programs.  The Hamilton Spectator 23 Sept 21

I guess it takes a while for news to reach the remote fastness of the Hillbillies of Hamilton, but rural Albertans knew of the potential effects of excessive lockdowns back in April, 2020.  In that month, in a remarkable series of articles published in The Hill, Dr. Scott Atlas of the Hoover Institution described the effects of locking down the economy beyond a two week period.  He concluded that locking down beyond four weeks produced worse adverse health effects and cost more in terms of life-years lost than letting the pandemic run.

Among the adverse effects he noted are those mentioned in the Spectator article: a loss of childhood vaccination programs, a drop in public health inspections and the adverse effects of that, as well as rising loss of life from drug addiction, alcoholism, and domestic violence.

You have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time, and the top-down government tyrannical control of everything prevented that.  If government had limited itself to providing accurate information and thrown the reins onto the neck of the horse, we’d have done much better.  You see, 99 percent of the world’s knowledge is possessed by the 99 percent of the population that don’t work for the government.  By going full communist control, the government blocked the application of the knowledge and genius of the 99 percent.  The few who worked for the government controlled everything, and they couldn’t walk and spit tobacco juice at the same time.

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Getting played by medical professionals?

Vincent J. Curtis

23 Sept 21

RE: Opinions have consequences, by Jacquie Reid.  A letter to the editor published in the Hamilton Spectator 23 Sept 21.

After reading Jacquie Reid’s letter, I got the distinct impression that Hamiltonians are being played.  Let me set out a few facts, as opposed to opinions.

The number if ICU beds in Ontario is 2300.  Of these, 1400 are occupied by non-COVID patients, leaving 900 to deal with pandemic cases.  On September 22, Ontario reported 179 COVID patients in ICU, of which 155 tested positive and 24 negative.  There were 130 on ventilator, of which 112 tested positive and 18 negative for COVID-19.  The number of COVID patients anywhere in hospital was 330.

There is plenty of reserve capacity available in Ontario hospitals to deal with COVID emergencies, and that may be one reason why Ontario is accepting Alberta’s overflow.  So, where does the impression arise that COVID is presently “straining hospital resources?”  Is COVID really responsible for the cancellation of surgeries?

Anyhow, these contentions were used to bash the unvaccinated.  But, given the data, it simply can’t be so that the resources of Ontario’s hospitals are stretched to the limit - to the point where necessary heart surgeries are being cancelled.  Could there be other reasons?

In Ontario, as in Alberta, the various medical “unions” I’ll call them (though official they’re not) are in tough negotiations with the provincial government over, of all things, compensation.  Could it be that politically embarrassing opinions are being ventilated because of that?

Could it be that politically unpopular control measures are being demanded in various ways by medical professionals, not because they work, but because they make the government look bad either by not employing them or by employing them.  Meanwhile, the medical professional condemning the government hides his self-interest behind his lab coat, and the progressive media ask no tough questions, do no research of their own, and act as if they have no political interest at stake themselves.  In short, how much of this is just anti-Conservative government propaganda?

The medical unions are staffed by people too, and no amount of education can free people from human foibles.

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Justin to break progressive hearts, again

Vincent J. Curtis

21 Sept 21

In an appeal to progressives in 2015, Justin Trudeau promised to reform Canada’s electoral system into something resembling proportional representation.  He gave up the project, if he ever had any intent to go through with it, when he learned that the system he had in mind required constitutional amendments.  If implemented, the reforms would have utterly deranged the system of parliamentary representation that has been the English-British-Canadian tradition for 850 years, going back to the Great Parliament of 1265.

(There are some progressives who believe that if something has worked well for 850 years, there’s got to be something wrong with it.  The system at issue is plurality election, which operates on the principle that the person with the most votes wins.  To disparage this principle, plurality election is sometimes called pejoratively “first-past-the-post”, as if elections were a kind of horse race.)

In the last desperate days of the 2021 campaign, Trudeau once again promised progressive he would look at electoral reform.  Progressives are bound to be disappointed again.

Trudeau is not going to mess with a system that gave him a near majority government with only 32 percent of the popular vote, leaving the party with 34 percent far behind in seats and in fact losing a few seats at the election.

The lesson for progressives is this: fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

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Hamilton to become a Third World City

Vincent J. Curtis

21 Sept 21

RE: Hamilton’s growth means changes in housing.  Op-ed in the Hamilton Spectator 21 Sept 21

The article by Mike Collins-Williams, CEO of the West End Homebuilders Association simply shows that the builders can build anything you want.  If you want to turn parts of Hamilton into Calcutta or Moscow, Soviet Union, circa 1975, they’ll happily do it.

But why?  Why should the next generation of Hamiltonians pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for what amounts to a hovel today?  Why should the next generation of Hamiltonians accept far less in their housing than the middle-class of today have?

If you think that these densified projects aren’t going to turn into crime-infested urban blight, you don’t know the history of these things.  That ugliness spreads into the nicer neighborhoods adjacent to them.

It’s incredible to me that fear of “climate change” is the reason Hamilton is contemplating turning itself into a third-world city.  The polar ice caps will melt, sea level will rise, hurricanes will get more intense, war and pestilence will get worse because Hamilton expands its urban boundary to accommodate 236,000 more middle class people?  Really?  Oh, it’s just a tiny contribution to that?  How tiny?  Approximately zero?  Hamilton degenerates so China can spew more CO2 – Hamilton is that self-effacing?

Regardless, Hamilton is going to need one or more Mountain accesses to accommodate.  Another ring road will need to be built.  Older Hamiltonians will remember the fight over the Red Hill Valley Expressway – a debate I contributed to when the Consolidated Hearings Board came to Hamilton.  On the books were other optional routes, and if memory serves, one of them ran from Hwy 403 along Twenty Road out to Fruitland Road, and then down Fruitland Road to the QEW.  That option may need to be dusted off.

Highway 413 and a ton more civic infrastructure can’t come fast enough if Hamilton is going to get 236,000 more people in thirty years.

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Racy racist condemns Bill 21, but not the French

Vincent J. Curtis

20 Sept 21

RE: How to fight racism without Quebec bashing.  Op-ed in the Hamilton Spectator of 20 Sept 21.

It’s hard to imagine being more incoherently racist than Carrie Scott, associate professor of feminist and gender studies at the University of Ottawa, was in her article.  Literally everything was about race: white people, whiteness, two white male leaders, white people are to “stop centering white perspectives (whatever that means!) and demand that others do the same.(Presumably other whites!)”

As atonement, whites should give money to organizations led by coloured people.  White are to develop and maintain strong “relationships of accountability” (whatever that is!) with coloured organizations and coloured communities.  Whites are also supposed to “Centre BIPOC thinkers (whatever ‘centre’ means!) who propose policies to end systemic racism and vote for them - regardless of whether whites think those policies are wrongheaded, and the thinkers are incompetent and crazy on other issues.

Oh, and that old canard “systemic racism” gets slugged around with no effort to explain what it is, or even give an example. (Here's an example: The Indian Act, which creates in law a class of people to whom Canada owes certain things.  Indian is a race, and one is determined to be an Indian based on ancestral descent.)

All of Scott's ranting concerns Quebec’s Bill 21, which bans the display of religious symbols by public employees.  Superficially, this enactment of the policy of lacieté eliminates divisions between people, the opposite of division by race.  And since the issue concerns religious symbols, what has race got to do with it?  Scott is like an broken record that can’t get out of the racism track.

I’m uncomfortable dealing with a Muslim woman in a hijab, niqab, or other headscarf.  In the Muslim tradition, those women are not to be looked at by men other than close relatives.  Why am I being force to look upon a woman telling me this with her dress?

Critics of Bill 21 have completely missed the real scandal.

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They're "overwhelming" underwhelms

Vincent J. Curtis

18 Sept 21

RE: Overwhelming survey response to freeze Hamilton’s urban boundary Hamilton Spectator 18 Sept 21.

Let’s disregard for the moment the fallacy of an “overwhelming” survey response, which required people to return a survey.  Hint: it’s a form of “survivor bias,” and only those fiercely interested in the matter actually respond.  The actual overwhelming response is indifference to the issue.

However, Hamilton is going to have to find space to accommodate a 50 percent increase in population in the next thirty years.  If you rely on “densification,” it means that every other house in Hamilton will have to be duplexed to meet the demand.  The homeless crisis will only get worse as the cost of housing skyrockets and the number of poor increase in numbers with the growing population.

It seems grossly undemocratic to say that 16,000 people should decide the future of 236,000, who, if they could vote, would vote to have a middle class home like most people in Hamilton do today.

The arguments against expanding the urban boundary are that valuable farm land would be turned over to housing, and the polar ice caps will melt.  The land in question is no longer farmed, and never will be again because it is already owned by developers in anticipation of the need for new housing.  It’s no wonder most Hamiltonians are indifferent, not wanting to get involved in an issue where progressive viciousness and vindictiveness rules.  Oh, the ice caps won’t melt.

The consequences of denying land for new developments are well-known, and they’re not good.

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Alberta needs more Valium, not more vaccinations.

Vincent J. Curtis

17 Sept 21

It is fashionable nowadays to cluck one’s tongue over a COVID emergency in Alberta, and certain panicky pills in Edmonton are feeding the storyline.  In fact, the emergency lies in the minds of a very small number of people.

The fully vaccinated rate in Alberta is 72 percent, and a further 8 percent are partially vaccinated.  With a population of 5 million, that leaves fewer than one million people over age 12 unvaccinated.  Today, Alberta reported 1700 new cases, and a total active case number of 18,000.  Alberta has 222 people in ICU care, and of all those hospitalized, 22 percent are fully vaccinated!

In comparison, Ontario has a marginally better vaccination rate, but with three times the population of Alberta, has nearly three million unvaccinated.  Yet Ontario reports fewer than 800 new cases per day, and has about 6200 total active cases.  Some 30 percent of those hospitalized are fully vaccinated, and there are about 140 ICU cases, of which 13 percent are fully vaccinated.

What accounts for the six-fold higher case numbers in Alberta?  It isn’t due to vast differences in vaccination rates.  It has to do with the intensity of the COVID virus in Alberta, and Ontario should be thankful it does not have this level of exposure.

These numbers show that even vaccines are only marginally effective, and that the age and underlying health of those infected matter more than vaccination status.  The pandemic ebbs and flows in accordance with factors the health officials have yet to figure out, for none of the measures so far tried – mask mandates, lockdown, and vaccination – have proven effective.

Withal, the panic in Alberta is over 222 cases in a population of five million.  What is needed is more Valium, not more pressure to vaccinate.

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Make the unvaxxed pay!

Vincent J. Curtis

17 Sept 21

Denying OHIP Coverage means the end of socialized medicine

Over the last several weeks, the Spectator has run letters in which it is said that the unvaccinated should forced pay for their hospital stays and be denied OHIP coverage.  The same has been said about smokers, drug addicts, and other people who have unhealthy habits.  Because of their vices, they ought to be denied OHIP coverage.

Those of this sentiment should vote to end socialized medicine, because that is what they’re demanding.  They want purely for-profit medicine, with no exemptions for poverty or anything else.

If a person is going to be denied of OHIP coverage because of this or that perceived vice, and they’re expected to pay out of their own pocket, then they have a right to private insurance coverage.  With private insurance that may pay more for services than the going OHIP rate comes a better level of treatment for the OHIP denied.  Quickly, socialized medicine starts to unravel.

There can be no exceptions for poverty.  If an unvaccinated person doesn’t have insurance and is unable to pay the hundreds of thousands of dollars of potential health care costs, then that person cannot be admitted to hospital.  Otherwise, the bill gets paid by OHIP, and that violates the rule of making people pay for their vices.

Those demanding that the unvaccinated pay for their COVID hospitalization probably don’t realize that they’re really calling for an end to socialized medicine and the implementation of a full for-profit medical system with no exceptions for poverty.

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EV mandate places Canada in hands of Chinese Communist Party

Vincent J. Curtis

16 Sept 21

Among the many stupid things that Justin Trudeau has imposed upon Canada with the aim of saving the world from carbon dioxide induced climate change is the imposition of and Electric Vehicle mandate, to come into effect in 2035.

Electric vehicles require lithium batteries and super magnets to work.  With the fall of Afghanistan, the massive, untapped lithium deposits in that country have fallen into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.  China is also the home of eighty percent of the world’s supply of rare-earth metals, which are essential ingredients of super-magnets.  At a stroke, Trudeau is placing Canada’s economic future into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.

How are those electric vehicles doing, by the way?  We’ve all heard of the Tesla, but General Motors, beginning with the Chevy Volt, has been working on electric vehicles for over a decade.  Their latest iteration, the Bolt, has had two recalls to deal with battery fires.  The danger of battery fire is so great that GM, after the second recall, made the following announcement through its spokesman Dan Flores:

"In an effort to reduce potential damage to structures and nearby vehicles in the rare event of a potential fire, we recommend parking on the top floor or on an open-air deck and park 50 feet or more away from another vehicle. Additionally, we still request you do not leave your vehicle charging unattended, even if you are using a charging station in a parking deck."

Overpriced, fire-prone, and short-range, EVs are not for everyone.

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School Board Cat Fight

Vincent J. Curtis

15 Sept 21

RE: Trustee Paikin Miller Sanctioned for Third Time,  Hamilton Spectator news item of 15 Sept 21.

Merrrroww! Pffft, Pffft!  The cat fight on the HWDSB continues.  The only thing missing from this girl-fight is the hair-pulling.  The screaming occurs behind closed doors.

I guess with age comes a certain dignity, and instead of hair-pulling we get passive-aggressive mean-girl stuff: letter-writing, sanctions, and official reports saying so-and-so is BAD!

If Paikin Miller were Black or Muslim, she’d be untouchable.  To criticize her, as the other Board-girls are, would be called racist or Islamophobic.  But since Paikin Miller is Jewish, those defenses aren’t available.  This time, P-M was written a nastygram for violating the Board’s Code of Conduct, which is to say, girl behaving badly.

Apparently, P-M has a habit of speaking her mind, and we can’t have that in an elected official!  God knows, the truth might out!  As punishment, she is relieved from having to sit in even more committee meetings.  Previously, P-M was bad for telling an 18 year old Muslim girl to shut and listen for a change, and for “having a problematic attitude toward equity issues,” which is to say she has a problem with reverse prejudice against white people.

The precious code of conduct violations apparently were: failing to uphold the dignity of office, acting unprofessionally, disparaged other Board members – all in writing!  All passive-aggressive twaddle.  P-M must have been pissed!

Anyhow, an election can’t come soon enough to relieve Hamilton of this dysfunctional Board.  Elect more men!

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So what’s the difference?

Vincent J. Curtis

14 Sept 21

RE: Washington State grapples with Idaho COVID cases.  By Mike Baker of the New York Times.  Published in the Hamilton Spectator 14 Sept 21.

The main stream media blew its credibility by politicizing the COVID pandemic.  Anything to beat Trump. It continues in the same vein with stories reporting that Washington State is grappling with Idaho’s COVID cases.  It’s like Ontario didn’t take some Manitoba COVID emergencies, or Toronto didn’t off-load COVID cases to Hamilton.

Progressive, Democrat-voting Washington State boasts one of the highest vaccination rates in the U.S. while Trump-supporting Idaho has one of the lowest.  Washington State also has mask mandates, vaccination mandates, and quarantines upon mere exposure, the whole ball of wax.  Yet, Washington State is “reeling under its own surge of coronavirus cases.”  Surgeries are postponed, patients are backed up in emergency rooms, and nurses are working brutal shifts.

Idaho has none of the mandates or COVID protocols in place, and it too has overloaded hospitals, to the point where hospitals in Idaho are looking to send patients to Washington State.  “If you have your health care system melting down, the idea that you would not immediately issue a mask mandate is just bizarre,” said a Washington State health care official, bizarrely unaware of the ineffectiveness of masks.

There appears no difference in health problems in both states despite differences in approach to handling COVID, but Idaho gets slammed and Washington State gets the favored treatment in the story.  No interest in why the same problem despite different approaches.

Now drunk with power and its new-found ability to cancel and censor all opposition, it’s all politics all the time, even in pandemics.  Progressive politics.

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Passports passé

Vincent J. Curtis

12 Sept 21

On Sunday, British Secretary of Health Sajid Javid announced that Britain would not be going forward with a vaccine passport, and he did not anticipate any more lockdowns.  Not only was the British public being practically French in their demonstrative opposition to passports, but Javid understood that passports were being implemented for no rational reason.

“We shouldn’t be doing things for the sake of it,” he said.

The rationale for passports has never made sense.  If a person is vaccinated, he or she is protected from infection from their mask-wearing waitress.  To say otherwise is to maintain that vaccines don’t work and that masks don’t work either.  Hence, the criticism that passports will be required for customers but not staff at a restaurant is incoherent.

By now, those unvaccinated are choosing to be so, and, being adults, are making an adult’s choice to take the risk.  It is a risk they take upon themselves and no one else.  At some point, others have to respect that decision.  If an one adult cannot respect the decision of another adult without an articulable, principled reason, then why should the other respect the decisions of the first?

If Ontarians were like-minded with the British, Premier Doug Ford wouldn’t dare to impose a passport mandate.  At this point, governments are only listening to the crazy Karens, and whichever side shouts the loudest gets the policy choice.

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Case numbers drop all by themselves

Vincent J. Curtis

11 Sept 21

RE: Mu variant found in Hamilton as numbers drop.  News item Hamilton Spectator 11 Sept 21.

Hamilton’s case rate dropped a reported 24 percent in the past week all by itself, without mask mandates, lockdowns, or a rise in vaccinations.  How could this be possible?

A pandemic has its own natural ebb and flow.  A drop of 24 percent in a week would be claimed the consequence of a mask mandate or a lockdown – if these had been imposed.  But of course, they weren’t.  The drop can only be attributed to a natural ebb in the pandemic.

It is defensible mathematically to say that the duration and height of the fourth wave were limited by a high vaccination rate.  This dramatic drop in infection rate illustrates that mask mandates and lockdowns were utterly ineffective in controlling the lengths and durations of waves one, two, and three.  The pandemic ebbed and flowed in accordance with factors that were not touched by human intervention.  We know from previous studies that lockdowns don’t work and may even contribute to the spread, at least initially; and that cloth and paper masks are useless as filters against virus-sized airborne particles.  This episode of a 24 percent week over week drop is further confirmation of what previous analyses showed – that pandemics ebb and flow of their own accord.

Mask mandates and lockdowns were placebos intended to make it look like the government and the experts were doing something and to silence the panicky pills who were demanding that something be done.  The vaccine passport is yet another bone tossed to the panicky pills to keep them quiet.

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O’Toole wins leadership debate. Trudeau hosed.

Vincent J. Curtis

10 Sept 21

It was a grueling two hours.  It could have ended after the first seventy minutes and been enough, but after a full two hours the English language leadership debate was a debacle for Justin Trudeau.  Prolonging it beyond one hour didn’t rescue his cause.

The plain winner was Erin O’Toole.  He came across as reasonable, Prime Ministerial, in command of his briefs, focussed, and well-spoken.  He was delivering his talking points but didn’t sound like he was, which was why he was so effective.  O’Toole was the best debater on stage last night.

The next best, a surprising second, was Annamie Paul.  You don’t have to agree with her positions to see that she is impressive; she came across well, sincere, well-spoken and focussed on the question.  Her attack on Justin Trudeau’s feminist credentials was powerful.  Her criticism that the stage was insufficiently diverse fell to the ground when you count a black woman, a Sikh, two French guys, and a white Anglo among five people.  It’s hard to get more diverse than that.  Maybe another woman, but hey, Chrystia Freeland’s only deputy leader.  Paul is personally so impressive that I’d offer her an Ambassadorship to the country of her choice.

Justin Trudeau came in dead last among the debaters.  He was losing, and he knew it; in panic-mode he came across as desperate, trying to land blows on the calm, confident O’Toole, and delivering those tropes of how wonderful Canadians can be under his leadership.  Trudeau was taking blows from all sides, and particularly telling were those recounting promises made, promises not kept.  All talk, no action.  A floundering, panicked Trudeau did not come across well.  He was far less Prime Ministerial than O’Toole, and if the roles were reversed and O’Toole were PM, you’d never select the Trudeau of last night over the O’Toole of last night.

Jagmeet Singh came across as credible.  He didn’t hurt his cause, which is socialism, and he probably helped it by coming across as more sensible and thoughtful than the program he represents.  His attacks on Trudeau were effective, and Trudeau was forced address specifically the problem of progressives parking their votes with Singh at this election.  Singh was pretty good, just eclipsed by a radiant Annamie Paul.

Yves-François Blanchet was the Quebecois curmudgeon whose most effective lines concerned reconciliation with aboriginals on a “nation-to-nation” footing.  He regards Quebec as a nation, while the other provinces are mere provinces; and he wants Ottawa to treat Quebec on a “nation-to-nation” basis.  Otherwise, he showed the rest of Canada that the Bloc Quebecois could work with a Conservative government under Erin O’Toole that, like the Harper government, respected the constitutional rights of the provinces and basically left Quebec alone.  The support for an O’Toole government was a signal that a workable Conservative minority government is possible.

The general attitude among the commentariat is dissatisfaction with the debate format, which means they too recognize that their hero got hosed last night.  Trudeau lacks the discipline to talk in epigrams as O’Toole did last night, and the tight schedule kept him from ever regaining his balance after he stumbled out of the gate, which he does repeatedly.  His attempts to speak over the others during their time was effectively controlled by the moderators, and he looked bad in comparison to O’Toole by continually trying and failing at this gambit.

O’Toole deserves a multi-point bounce after the debate at the expense of Trudeau.  Paul’s performance may help her party overtake the PPC party of Maxime Bernier in the polls.

We’ll see.  Just ten days to the election, and it could be a Conservative minority.

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Conservatives fail the Torstar test

Vincent J. Curtis

9 Sept 21

RE: Conservative child-care plan fails the test.  Torstar editorial published in the Hamilton Spectator 9 Sept 21.

It comes as no surprise that Torstar, a semi-official organ of the Liberal Party, would find fault with a Conservative Party platform plank.  In this case, it happens to be child-care.  At least the editorial hints at the fact that the Liberal child-care plan is simply an election plumb pulled out in desperation, never implemented in the calm of office.

The difference between the Liberal and Conservative plans reflects differences in political philosophy and differences in the power relationship of government to small business.  The Liberal plan has the government writing cheques, where the Conservative plan has people keeping more of their own money.

With the power of writing cheques comes the power of enforcing compliance with whatever mandate the government of the moment fancies.  We see this power used all the time in the United States, where the recipient of federal tax dollars is obliged to comply with this or that or lose their funding.  The Conservative idea of a tax deduction grants the government no power over those on whom the money is spent, but retains the full power of the parents, who spend the money.

The best child-care idea of all is to have an economy in which moms can choose to stay home and raise their kids because dad is earning enough money to run a decent home.  We don’t want both parents having to work for a decent family income.

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Demonizing the unvaxxed: Never Mind Your Health!

Vincent J. Curtis

8 Sept 21

Never mind your health, it's my health you're endangering!

Watching the unvaccinated get demonized by the very people who would condemn the demonization of religious minorities is both amusing and alarming. (Yes, I’m talking about you, Justin Trudeau!)

This pandemic has seen the strangest of mob fixations.  It began with the hoarding of toilet paper, of all things.  Then it was the disallowance of certain people’s right to work or to remain in business, but not to the extreme of making life inconvenient for the rest.  The corner store could close, but not Walmart and Costco.  Liquor and cannabis stores were deemed essential.  Then came the masking fetish.

Unless it’s an N-95 dust mask or a NIOSH-approved respirator, masks are worthless for blocking the virus.  Those cloth or paper masks are nothing but signs of compliance, having no filtration value for virus-sized particles.  But compliance is what the hysterical demand regardless of how irrational the demand is.

Now, the unvaccinated are being utterly demonized, being harder nuts to crack.  “Never mind your health, it’s my health you’re endangering.” says the vaccinated person to the unvaccinated.  Disregard how irrational this argument is, that’s the case being made to justify the demonization of the unvaxxed.  A person is supposed to take a drug they don’t want to make you feel better?  Explain why that principle doesn’t work in reverse also.

The vaccinated need to snap out of pandemic hysteria.  They’re as safe as they’re going to be.  Don’t get panicked by case numbers among the unvaccinated because you’re not one of them.

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Alberta Health imposes thumb-sucking mandate!

Vincent J. Curtis

3 Sept 21

Mandating masks now proves incompetence. 

At this stage of the pandemic, to resort once again to mask mandates merely proves that Alberta Health officials don’t read the scientific literature and are incapable of learning from experience.  They are incompetent.

Last month, the University of Waterloo engineering department released a study which showed that cloth and paper masks are worthless.  They stop less than ten percent of particles the size of viruses.  This study confirmed what was known about surgical masks in April, 2020.

If mask mandates did anything, why did Alberta and many other jurisdictions have a second and a third wave of the pandemic?  Clearly, they didn’t work.

In lab studies and in practice it is demonstrated that cloth and paper masks are useless.

We know for certain now that mask mandates are the equivalent of thumb-sucking.  Thumb-sucking makes some people feel better, and mandating thumb-sucking makes the government look like it’s doing something.

But it is also undermining confidence in Alberta Health.  Are they that stupid?  Are they that incompetent that they can’t learn from experience?  Or are they feeding Albertans another noble lie to avoid admitting that they’re at a loss and don’t want the public to panic?

The diet of noble lies we have been fed since the beginning of the pandemic may explain the great mistrust there is of mandatory vaccination.

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Cancel the offending expert!

Vincent J. Curtis

4 Sept 21

RE: Liberals call for veto of acting medical officer of health in Haldimand-Norfolk The Canadian Press news article published in the Hamilton Spectator 4 Sept. 21.

Ontarians are represented by idiots.  Liberal Health Care critic John Fraser, for example, wants an acting appointee medical officer to be cancelled because the doctor opposes lockdowns!  Fraser calls lockdown a “life-saving public health measure” that the appointee opposes.

Who is the credentialed expert here, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Queen’s University Dr. Matt Strauss, or Mr. John Fraser, MPP for Ottawa South - Dogsnest?  Since lockdowns are, at best, a necessary evil, don’t you want someone in charge who opposes the imposition of an evil?

Being opposed to lockdowns merely proves that Dr. Strauss is following the science, which has been averse to lockdowns since April, 2020.  The definitive study of lockdowns came in January, 2021, when doctors from the Stanford University Medical Center concluded from a study of lockdown measures world-wide that they were ineffective in controlling the spread.  The empirical daily case data from Ontario supports that conclusion.  Lockdowns – mass quarantines -don’t save a life, and prolonged lockdowns may cost lives through the secondary health consequences they have.

The real offense here is the urge to cancel.  Disregard Dr. Strauss’ qualifications and expertise, he’s a threat to the mindset of shut-up and obey the government!  Strauss is as qualified as the people advising Ford, and having time and less pressure, is able to think and draw different conclusions.  Conclusions that must be cancelled in a free and democratic society, apparently.

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Federal Housing Policies Stink!

Vincent J. Curtis

3 Sept 21

Housing crises, their causes and consequences have been written about extensively by American economist Thomas Sowell.  The cause is no mystery, and is an example of the most elementary of economic laws: supply and demand.

When demand increases and supply is strangled, prices rise.  The way to strangle housing supply is for governments to deny new land for development.  The skyrocketing housing prices in Toronto are the direct result of the creation of the “green belt,” which denied new land for housing.  Because house prices go up, the poor and lower income get squeezed out by rising rents.  Subsides don’t help because the lack of new construction means no new rentable housing comes onto the market to accommodate the rising numbers of poor and lower income that grow in size with the general population.  Hence, homelessness.

Hamilton could expand its urban boundary to accommodate 200,000 new residents, but the argument against it is that the polar ice caps will melt!  Densify instead, runs the argument.

In 1835, young Irish immigrants Patrick Murray and wife Mary Radigan bought a 1/5 acre lot (66’ x 132’) on Corktown’s O’Reilly St. and built a house on it.  But in 2035, young Hamilton families are supposed to be content with pandemic-friendly apartments and row houses?  Why?  Because the anointed of today want to make decisions for future Hamilton families based on their superior vision and moral judgement?

Markets work when governments let them.  The answer to housing crises is more land, not subsides or more ham-fisted regulations.  The government is going to solve the problem - it is the problem!

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 The author is a direct descendent of Patrick Murray and Mary Radigan.

 

McDonald's and Tim Horton's will be hiring bouncers

Vincent J. Curtis

2 Sept 21

McDonald’s and Timmies will have to hire bouncers

When it comes to vaccine passports, keep in mind is that this idea comes from the same idiots who brought you mask mandates and lockdowns.  If mask mandates worked, why did Ontario have a second and then a third wave?  If lockdowns worked, why were conditions worse after four weeks – two successive quarantine periods – than they were at the beginning of the lockdowns?

Vaccines passports serve two ends: one is to make it look like the government is doing something; two, to make some people feel better.  Passports won’t change the course of a fourth wave any more than masks and lockdowns changed the courses of waves two and three.  By now, those who don’t want the vaccine aren’t going to be persuaded by the coercion of a passport, so passports be around for a long time.

McDonald’s and Tim Horton’s are two of the largest restaurant chains with indoor dining.  McDonald’s is using automation to reduce labour costs.  Is every McDonald’s and Timmies franchise going to have to hire bouncers to check ID and passports?  Seems so.  Who is going to pay for this extra expense?

By-law enforcers are supposed to hand out fines to customers and establishments for being caught passport-less.  Ordinarily, it requires probable cause for police to demand someone who is quietly minding his own business to produce ID and passport.  People have a right against self-incrimination, and so may lawfully refuse to hand over their cell phones for inspection to someone who isn’t even a sworn peace officer.  And, with fewer than 6.000 active cases, 99 + percent of the unvaccinated are not infected.  There is no probable cause anyhow.

Civil rights aren’t dead.

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Deplorables Days

Vincent J. Curtis

1 Sept 21

Vaccine passports are means of coercing the vaccine hesitant to get vaccinated - by making their lives miserable until they do.  Passports only work when the proportion of vaccinated to not is in a certain range.  If a high proportion of the population is vaccinated, then passports become a useless encumbrance, like having to show picture ID every time you enter a store.  Too low a proportion, and it becomes impractical to exclude and fire that many people.

Enterprising business owners might also find workarounds to vaccine passports.  They could hold “Deplorables Days” when those with vaccine passports get excluded and the unvaccinated get to enter the establishment.  There could be Deplorables bars and restaurants that exclude those with passports, or who claim not to have one.  The aim of passports, segregating the good from the bad, will be achieved, except not in the manner contemplated by the government of the good.  There are gay bars, why not Deplorable bars?

The shape of passport legislation is to the effect that only those with them get to enjoy the pleasures of life - by denying entry of those without.  Any legislation would have to violate some pretty basic civil rights if a business owner chose to keep the select outside and letting the deplorables in.  Would a vaccinated business owner who himself did not get a passport be permitted to enter his own establishment?  With passports, the aim is to have one; the underlying condition is secondary, so not having the passport even though vaccinated would seem to exclude the business owner from his own property.

Passports are fraught with legal problems, and unexpected workarounds.

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