CitizenVectron

One of the things about America that I envy is there is the legal ability to set a federal minimum wage. Here, employment is a provincial matter, so you have a disparity. I think min wages in Canada rage from around $11.25/hr to $16.00/hr. The federal minimum is $15, but that only applies to federally regulated industries (banking, airlines, railways, etc)...areas where few people would be making min wage anyway.

Guy in my city is being charged with assault by anti-mask protestors. He was walking downtown near their "freedom rally," and they provoked him. They yelled obscenities at this wife and then grabbed her phone away when she started recording them, so thy guy shoved/hit the person who took the phone. He posted a gofundme to cover his legal costs (with 50% of donations going to local charity, and 100% in excess of his legal costs). First legal defense I've donated to. These "freedom" types are always recording their interactions to protect themselves...but in this case they say they have nothing (which would likely show them starting the physical altercation), and are pressing charges. I fucking hate these people. Last week they went to my city's main hospital and yelled outside that the nurses were killing people, they put chalk messages on the sidewalks at all entrances calling nurses murderers, and then stayed on the street all day with huge speakers blasting hateful things at the hospital. They are just horrible people. It also came out this week that one of their leaders runs a sex-trafficking ring of "massage" parlors. Not surprising. There were nurses crying at the hospital after working 16-hour shifts in the ICU (which is 200% capacity).

Few Canadians contracting COVID-19 after first vaccine dose: PHAC (iheartradio.ca) Out of 13 million people who have received at least one dose, only 2,274 have contracted COVID-19 more than 14 days after receiving their dose. Of those, 203 were hospitalized, and 53 died. Shows that the vaccines are working quite well, even after a single dose.

Yeah that song is a banger. "Death doesn't discriminate between the sinners and the saints—it takes, and it takes, and it takes," is such a strong line.

Biden family dogs, Champ and Major, trigger conservative group lawsuit WWW.NEWSWEEK.COM "We have no doubt that Major and Champ are good dogs but politicians and bureaucrats can't be trusted," the Judicial Watch federal complaint reads.

Biden Raises Refugee Cap To 62,500 After Earlier Criticism WWW.NPR.ORG The new ceiling for refugee admissions will be 62,500 — far above former President Donald Trump's cap of 15,000. Advocates had been concerned Biden was not moving fast enough on a campaign promise. Still way too low. Should be at least in the hundreds of thousands. EDIT - Looks like it will be raised to 125,000 in Sept (current number is pro-rated). Still too low. Make it 500k or higher.

Fookin' A

Just completed the 2021 census online, took 10 minutes. Some new questions, like what were the household residents' assigned sex at birth vs current declared gender. Unfortunately I was only assigned the short-form census, not long-form.

$100 tax credit applicable to the second $10,000 you make after opening a small business in an underprivileged community.

Google MorningLightMountain from Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth Duology (Pandora's Star, and Judas Unchained): A terrifying antagonistic alien that was imprisoned inside a dyson sphere until humanity unwittingly (in our stupid quest of exploration) unlocked it. Great book series!

Just run them over and say "It probably wasn't even my car that killed them. Did they have any pre-existing conditions?!?"

Yes. The only category was age. It started (Phase I) with 80+ and hospital workers. Since then it's dropped by a year or two every few days. This week they also allowed front-line workers of certain categories to book, even if they were below 40 (teachers, firefighters, etc). This is also first-dose only, of course. But we should be able to get 80% of adults fully vaccinated (both doses) by mid July, possibly exceeding the US (mostly based on a lower hesitancy).

Damn, my province just announced we've vaccinated 82% of people 60+, and 64% of people 40+ (43% overall for 18+). The uptake has been incredible, here. My province is a big piece of turd, but somehow it's done the vaccination rollout better than anywhere else in Canada.

I actually managed to convince someone in my local subreddit to go get a shot today after arguing back and forth for a few days...he also wanted to "wait and see." I managed to approach him in a friendly way and say while I understood his concerns, here was some research showing they weren't true, etc.

From my understanding, the RNA for SARS-CoV-2 is very simple, and there are only a limited number of mutations that can occur (almost all on the spike protein). So with the virus replicating trillions or quadrillions of times across the planet in the last year, it's very feasible that the same mutation could have occurred and survived in multiple places. The good news is that the core part of the virus seems to not be able to change, much, which allows for long-term t-cell immunity to be stronger.

Well, it could matter if the drop in cases is seasonal (as was the case in Canada/UK/Germany/etc last summer. It doesn't appear that way, but we can't completely rule it out.

Canada Will Require Using A Vaccine Passport For Entry WWW.FORBES.COM Our neighbor to the north is preparing to jump on the vaccine-passport bandwagaon, joining a slew of countries that require digital health certification. Should be pretty standard in the western hemisphere, I imagine.

Apparently The Marvels will feature Captain Marvel, Monica Rambeau (as Spectrum?), and Ms. Marvel (Disney+ show will lead into it).

Alberta is the Alabama of Canada. Or maybe Florida. Either way it's full of regressives. AB has double the cases per capita of anywhere else in Canada. And their ultra right-wing government doesn't care. Hell, half of the cabinet travelled out of Canada for Christmas holidays when it wasn't allowed. Ford is a moron, but Kenney is evil incarnate.

Looks like Canada will have second doses for everyone by end of July.

Supply ramps up massively in June:

Why the fuck does he want a constitutional amendment for a new state?