CitizenVectron

I was confused about the ages until I saw that this poll is six years old. Still stands, in terms of people not understanding stuff.

That shows him going to a conference on Dantooine about constructing pod racers and droids. They test him and he is off the chart for mechanoclorians, microscopic droid life that live inside everyone and give them mechanical skills. "Ah, that's how he knows!"

That's a great idea. Movie opens with a scene of Bond's current girlfriend going in to work. Except the Union Boss, hidden in shadow, reduces her hours. With no money, she commits suicide. Now it's personal. Bond tracks the Boss to El Salvador (because we need exotic locations), and after a series of elaborate chases and one-liners, confronts him on a half-built skyscraper. We learn that the Boss' name is Eduardo El Salvador, to imply that he is Central American, and socialist. "You can't touch me," he says, "because then this building, which will supply the locals with safe housing, will never be finished!" Bond looks down, thirty storeys to the ground, where over 200 men are standing around in high-vis vests and hard hats, doing nothing. "It's a union job, it never would have." He shoots Union Boss, who falls over the edge and dies. The locals cheer, and the US President flies in on a helicopter and shakes Bond's hand. Bond then pins an American flag pin to his lapel. The credits roll to Born in the USA, unironically.

He's admitting that he is John Cena.

Like you say, in the real world it gets complicated because the thing is thrown into black and white for PR purposes. If you denounce Israel, then maybe you hate Jewish people. The same was true in the years following 9/11—if you spoke out against security theatre, then maybe you hated America, and freedom. On issues where there is a huge incentive (whether financial, power-based, or territorial), you will have people in elite positions creating this false equivalency of opposition with aggression.

Trudeau called Belarus' actions "outrageous, illegal, & completely unacceptable," and as a result:

Same energy.

"A plane landed in Belarus after there having been a disagreement between the President and a man who had been on board. The plane then took off, with the man having left it, and the disagreement resolved."

Bitcoin believers honestly think that crypto will herald in some post-scarcity utopia where poor people walk around with GPUs in their pockets and pay for street food via coin transfers. If someone starts talking to me about crypto in real life (beyond admitting that they invested just to get rich, and it worked/failed), I ignore them.

Look, Biden is barely going to accomplish anything and then the Democrats will lose the Senate and House in 2022/2024, and Biden will lose to Trump in 2024. It's not because Biden is a horrible person or couldn't have been a transformational President...it's because the entire American nation-state and political system is broken. America as a concept doesn't really exist, cohesively, and unless there is a massive, unifying outside threat, there is no incentive for any of the factions to work together.

Polling in Canada shows that people who are anti-mask (and generally not taking as many precautions) are far more likely to be (in order): PPC, CPC, GPC, NDP, LPC. That's not to say some didn't vote LPC...but my honest guess is that most people at this sort of event didn't even vote in 2019 to begin with. Absolutely. Check this out: Wearing masks reduced spread of the virus by 37% in schools, and using good HVAC reduced it by 39%. Interestingly (if you read the thread), the most expensive measures (plastic barriers, etc) were the least effective, and possibly even harmful due to lowering ventilation/circulation.

I can guarantee that most of the people there did not vote Liberal.

My province has reached the target for Stage Two of re-opening. Basically it goes like this: Stage One - Three weeks after hitting 70% of 40+ pop with at least one dose - set for May 30 (currently at 76%) Stage Two - Three weeks after hitting 70% of 30+ pop with at least one dose, or three weeks after Stage One (whichever is later) - set for June 20 (currently at 70%) Stage Three - Three weeks after hitting 70+ of 18+ pop with at least one dose, or three weeks after Stage Two - set for ??? (currently at 63%) The nice part of the re-opening plan is that it is based on measurable metrics that encourage people to get vaccinated. The downside is that it doesn't take case or hospital loads into consideration. Theoretically if we're three weeks past 70% of the 18+ having received at least one dose then we should be pretty good on case count, etc...but it should have still been included. Most of the changes at each stage are gathering sizes and restaurant limits, etc. Mask mandate stays in place through all stages—it will be the last thing to be removed, likely not until mid-July or August. Only bad news is that now that we are starting second dose vaccinations, the single-dose numbers are starting to slow as doses are re-allocated. Still going up, though! Here's a chart I make daily for my provincial and city subreddits: As expected, uptake of vaccination drops the lower the age group. However, those lower age groups also have to compete with stragglers from the higher age groups, so it's not an entirely fair comparison. While only 50% of people aged 30-39 have received a first dose, it's still rising at about 1% per day.

This should be seen on the same level as sending up jets to force the craft down. Aren't there treaties that govern the open nature of civilian flight above intersecting nations?

I mean...they are likely studying all sorts of stuff there. Not a smoking gun for COVID-19 (not to say it's impossible).

Some good news:

For sure. Manitoba fucked up, hopefully they can get it under control. Winnipeg is a disaster zone at the moment, something like 15% positivity. The good news, if you can call it that, is something like 90% of the people in hospital in MB are unvaccinated. Now, some of them did get a shot but caught the virus in the first few days after (before immunity built), but at least it does show that we are on the road to reducing spread.

U.S. Commerce Department doubles tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber imports BC.CTVNEWS.CA The president of the BC Lumber Trade Council says a move by the United States to double tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber is "particularly egregious" given... Because what the US needs right now is higher wood prices.

Three years from now they will be saying the summer of 2021 did just that—eliminated it. Trump was right, it just needed two hot summers to kill the virus.

I think that we'll find 60% is not enough for herd immunity. The reason cases dropped in the UK and US was vaccination + restrictions (whether mandated or people following best practices). The good news is that most people ending up in hospital now are those who have not been vaccinated. The bad news is that there are some people who can't be vaccinated, so we need strong herd immunity to protect them. I'm not confident the US will get there, though I hope Canada will.

When one party is complicit in an attempted coup...yeah, it's going to be political.