Blanche, it’s Tofino BC Not Torino Italy. That’s where Justin was in the afternoon of the truth and reconciliation day. Sorry for the mix up, although Italy would have been a much better choice for a holiday. At least in our eyes.
In the end, Justin ditched an event scheduled for that day and had to apologize, yet again, this time to a British Columbia First Nation. After whining about how badly the Indigenous people have been treated over the years, he coldly chose his family over an event no less than right near the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.
Seriously? It was the very first time such a day was held and he couldn’t wait a few hours to be with his family. There’s nothing to say. He is what he is and was re-elected as such. People who voted for him should a) not be surprised and b) are getting exactly what they asked for.
So how was one yukel able to make an error that took down Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp for seven hours yesterday? Is that insanity? Was there no redundant power supply, which, when one system is powered off another one will immediately compensate to provide full power to the device so there is no downtime at all. Many places have redundant power supplies in several cities.
Something smells here. Big time. Seven hours? From one glitch? Come on.
What is very interesting about this whole episode is the following: Today, someone by the name of Frances Haugen is going to appear before the Senate subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security to blow the whistle on Facebook.
At some point in 2021, she realized, in our eyes like Edward Snowden, that she was going to let the world know what was happening inside Facebook in a systemic way, getting out enough information, secretly, that no one could question that this is real.
Her lawyers submitted the following: Our (then) anonymous client is disclosing original evidence showing that Facebook, Inc. has, for years past and ongoing, violated U.S. securities laws by making material misrepresentations and omissions in statements to investors and prospective investors, including, inter alia, through filings with the SEC, testimony to Congress, online statements and media stories.
Haugen’s attorneys have filed at least eight whistleblower complaints with the SEC based on tens of thousands of internal Facebook documents secretly copied by Haugen before she left the social media company in May.
One of her contentions is that Facebook said it was getting rid of over 90% of its Facebook hate speech when in fact they only removed ‘as little as 3-5%.’
Her revelations are going to send shockwaves throughout the social media world. For her sake, we sure hope she is well protected and living in a very safe place.
If Afghanistan has not yet completely collapsed under the rule of the Taliban, it is slowly, painfully on the way.
The Taliban stopped paying electricity providers from Central Asia, bringing the entire country, including the city of Kabul, to the verge of a permanent blackout. Many employees of the energy company have resigned, including its chief executive, after the Taliban took control. The government and many of its services are at a standstill.
Electricity imports from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan account for half of Afghanistan’s power consumption nationwide, with Iran providing additional supplies to the country’s west. Afghanistan lacks a national power grid and Kabul depends almost completely on imported power from Central Asia.
The big question here is will anyone care what happens there? Who exactly is going to go into that mess to try to clean it up? Our guess that is that for now, not one country in the world is willing to do that.
Today, Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole met with his caucus for the first time since the party’s election loss with his future as leader under question. While some want him to stay, there are others who want him out. Now. He lost seats and was very often silent in the face of Trudeau’s complete mishandling at the beginning of the covid crisis and other times when he should have spoken out.
He has been incommunicado since the election. Silent. Off the grid. That gives the impression he is running scared. What he needs to do is hone up on his leadership skills big time. Not sure if there was enough time to do that since the September 20 election.
It was announced that there is a pill coming to mitigate the symptoms of covid, which will clearly be, literally, a life-saver.
We were listening to Montreal’s english language radio station this morning. They were doing the daily interview with their in-house doctor. He said something so ridiculous that we had no choice but to comment.
When asked who would benefit from the pill he responded people who could not take the vaccine due to medical issues or people who took only one dose again because of health issues. So here’s our question: What is the difference between someone with a medical condition who could not take the vaccine at all and someone who did not take the vaccine out of choice? Both will benefit from the pill.
He chose to omit that small piece of information so let’s us be honest. Anyone who did not take the vaccine now has, if not a cure, then a pill to lessen the symptoms. The catch, as with shingles, is to get the pill as quickly as possible once your symptoms start.
There is a covid study being conducted in Montreal among its Orthodox Jewish communities because of the high numbers of people who contracted the illness.
While that’s well and good, there is another unspoken aspect to this story. Living in a community, which means having social contact with people, should also play into their study. One of the main elements of being an Orthodox Jew is that one is rarely all alone. And that’s what happened during covid.
The flip side is the amount of long-term mental health issues caused by people isolated in their apartments for over a year or longer.
So here’s another study that can be done. Covid-facists. Those are people who, to this day, search for any current information on how the virus is still active and spreading. Consciously or unconsciously, they want the virus to continue. It has defined their lives and given them purpose which they did not have before the pandemic.
These people pretty much stay home all the time, venturing out once in a while for food. Sadly, they have shunned shut themselves off from society. These people are going to have long term effects from being so isolated for so long. And, no one likes to talk about it. Or write about. Or do a study about it.
So while the official study may indeed show the religious community had more cases of covid, in the long run, they will be much better off than all those people holed up in their houses, virtually prisoners of the virus.
We’ll talk…