Why Conspiracies Fester

COVID 19 is FAKE! Trump won in 2020! Vaccines don't work!

Literally millions of people honestly believe these and other such things. It is generally assumed that they are nuts. I don't think so. 

These people are situating their belief systems in such a way as to adjust to the aspect of lying that has become the staple of Western political life. 

Put another way, they have been lied to so often by so many, that the truth is no longer clear to them, and anything that seems to break through the assumed lies to an "alternate reality" often seems accurate, especially if it accords with their religious beliefs, economic status, and views on race.

Three time-honoured examples of...

The Lies That Launched An Age of Conspiracy!

Let's Wag the Dog!! - The Second Gulf of Tonkin Incident.  

The USA launched its intervention in Vietnam after North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked two American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin off North Vietnam on two separate occasions. Except that the second attack never happened. 

The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that was placed before Congress to launch the war said this..

“Naval units of the Communist regime in Vietnam, in violation of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations and of international law, have deliberately and repeatedly attacked United States naval vessels lawfully present in international waters, and have thereby created a serious threat to international peace..."

Former Secretary of State, Robert McNamara, admitted in 2003 that the second attack that was relied upon to justify the war never occurred.

Filthy Bill Rides Again! - Bill Clinton. 

The man is a pig, plain and simple. Long before we discovered that he had been on the Lolita Express thirty times (i.e. Jeffrey Epstein's aircraft which ferried teen girls to be exploited on his rape island), Bill famously claimed this, under oath...

"I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky..."

Except that he did. Because of this lie and other actions, he was impeached by the House of Representatives and disbarred from practicing law in Arkansas.

Watch Bill's lie here...he is the master...you almost believe him even now!

Bill Clinton Lie - I DID NOT HAVE Sexual Relations with that Woman (Lewinsky) - YouTube

When he was finally cornered like a rat...

(32) When Clinton admitted to the Lewinsky affair - YouTube

Blow Up Trust Real Good!...The Missing Weapons of Mass Destruction.

In 2003, then President George W Bush justified an invasion of Iraq on Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction. The only problem with this was that he didn't actually have any. The Americans and their allies spent years looking for weapons that were not there.  

Did they lie? Most people assume they did, and that the USA wanted to get at Iraq and used this excuse to do so. Certainly, the UN did not think there were any weapons there, having done hundreds of inspections before the war turning up exactly nothing. There is no question the American Government knew this when they claimed - falsely - that weapons would be found.

Public Discourse...

Along with these lies there has emerged a new standard in public political commentary as news outlets moved from reporting the news to commenting on it. The effect of this has been multiplied many times by the advent of social media, which operates absent almost any sense of responsibility regarding political and other such comment.

There is BIG money in spreading conspiracies, and tapping into the new staple of Western political life, which is The Big Lie. Maybe this isn't evil, just normal?

We used to live in the shadows of Giants...Lincoln, Gandhi, Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr.  Today we cower after having sunk into a new post-reason Dark Age made more sinister by the lights of a perverted information technology.

But wait!  There is more!

One final note on the method of conspiracy theorists.

The method of conspiracy is to assume a fantastical reality, then go looking for the evidence to prove it. The scientific and historical method does the opposite, where one seeks to engage in a search for evidence first, and then reach conclusions reflecting wherever the search has taken you afterward, with no preconditions. The first and illegitimate method is only possible in the Information Age, where all manner of evidence is available to anyone to abuse as they see fit. 

Has unlimited access to information made us the most dishonest generation ever?

 

He Still Thinks He Can Win! Maybe He Can...

 Why won't Trump just admit defeat?

More than six months after the vote, there is no cogent evidence of wide-spread fraud in the 2020 US Presidential election. The results were assessed and confirmed everywhere across the country. No litigation succeeded in overturning any part of the vote anywhere. The constitutional process has played itself out. Joe Biden is legitimately the President of the United States.

No previous candidate has ever done what Trump is doing. By continuing to mobilize his party and supporters against the election result, he is testing American democracy, and he may be setting up a situation that could explode into even more violence at some point in the future.

So why is he doing this? 

There are two reasons.

The first related to Trump's psychology. Trump's worst fear is to ever be seen as a "loser". The fact that he actually lost an election is unacceptable to him to the very core of his being. He is never a loser in his mind, even to the extent that he has to cheat (golf) or lie (elections and many other things) to avoid the approbation that comes with losing. The man has a screw loose. He lost the election...he is a loser.

The second reason is related and has to do with the fact that he is a criminal. At the very least, it is illegal in the USA to use campaign contributions to pay ladies you have slept with to keep their mouths shut about it. There is no question he instructed his lawyer - Cohen - to do just that. At some point, charges will follow and he will be convicted. The prospect of heading to prison would no doubt be too much for Trump to bear...only losers go to the slammer.

This matters because the President of the United States cannot be charged with a crime while he is president. If Trump had won the election, he would be untouchable for four more years, which would have given him time to figure a way out of his various criminal messes...perhaps stepping aside as long as his successor pardoned him for any and all federal crimes that he may have ever committed.

And so, Trump is keeping alive the idea that he did not lose the 2020 election as a criminal defense for when he is charged with at least the charges noted above, and likely many more. When he is charged with any crime, his defense will be that he is actually properly the President of the United States, and that no charges may be brought against him. 

In terms of specific tactics, if he can stay out of jail until the 2022 mid-term elections, and should the Republicans retake the House of Representatives and the Senate, he could coerce his lackeys in the Republican Party to put through a motion recognizing him as the true President of the United States, and repudiating the election of Joe Biden. Trump then would be able to go to any court and say that, because it is at least possible that he could be restored as the President of the United States, any charges should at least be stayed.

Of course, if such a move were supported by Republican states, this could lead to talk of civil war. Given the violence of his supporters, one would think that tens of thousands would take to the streets, armed and ready to support him.

While the country would verge on catastrophe in this scenario, Trump would still be a winner.

And isn't that all that really matters?

Democratic Reform in Canada

We will soon head into another federal election. Democratic Reform will again be a significant issue.

The Government of Canada launched a democratic reform initiative in 2015 that went nowhere because politicians did not see how they could benefit from it.  Because they gain power from our democratic system of government, they cannot be trusted to reform it.

Why not take this issue out of the hands of politicians, and just let the people decide the base elements of democratic reform in a referendum?

What follows are some possible reforms that may be worth considering, and why they may be worthwhile.  It is suggested that if Canadians voted 55% or more in favour of any of these (a clear majority as we don't want a Brexit situation concerning something this important!), then the government should undertake to propose the necessary changes to our democratic laws to Parliament make them so.

1. Term Limits: No one should be able to sit as a Member of Parliament for longer than the life of three consecutive Parliaments, or a maximum of 12 years. 

- Absolute power corrupts absolutely, so a bit of power will corrupt a bit. Not all politicians are corrupt, in fact most are not. Nonetheless, a few bad apples are a few too many. The longer they stay, the greater the chances that they will abuse their position. Let politicians take a break after 12 years and get a small pension. Let them run again after they take one mandate off. If they choose to just retire, there are plenty of other qualified people who can replace them. Of course, because the Prime Minister is a Member of Parliament, this means that no PM can serve longer than 12 consecutive years.

2. Recall: Constituents should be able to recall their Member of Parliament and force a by-election, subject to strict criteria, such as 60% of electors in a riding signing a petition demanding a recall by-election within a 90 period. 

- It is ridiculous that MPs cannot be fired by the people they represent between elections. A recall by-election should be difficult to launch, but if an MP's behaviour warrants his or her firing, this option should be available to constituents.

3. Mandatory Voting: Every citizen should be required to vote in a federal election, with a small fine being levied against those who do not do so. 

- It works in Australia! Taking 30 minutes every four years to show up to vote is not too much to ask in a democracy. If voters do not like the candidates, they are free to spoil their ballots, but it is important that everyone be included in an election to add to the integrity of every Parliament’s mandate. If added to Internet voting, this is a "no-brainer".

4. Ranked Voting/Preferential Ballot (Alternative is a Run-Off Vote): Voters should be able to rank their preferences on a ballot, by indicating their first, second and third choices for their Member of Parliament. Rounds of votes should be counted until someone receives more than 50% of the votes. The candidate who receives the greatest amount of support over 50% will win the seat. 

As an alternative, there could be a run-off election after the main vote. If no one no one got more than 50% of the vote, there would be a run-off between the top two candidates, to make sure the winner can show they received more than 50% of the vote.

Note - The supporters of proportional representation argue that with the first-past-the-post system the winner of a riding is usually elected by only a plurality - that “their vote did not count”.  Actually, all votes are counted, and these people are really complaining that the person they preferred as their representative didn’t win with a level of support that is enough to leave no question in anyone’s mind as to their mandate to represent the riding.  To deal with this, ask that voters rank their top three preferences, and count rounds of votes until the winner shows the greatest level of support over 50%. This will allow the winner to be able to show that they did, in fact, get the over 50% of the vote. It also opens a world of possibility to parties that usually get a significant percentage of the vote, but which cannot convince more than a handful of constituents in a given riding to support their candidate. If they work to become everyone’s second choice, they could actually govern one day.  Having a run-off between the top two candidates a few weeks after the main vote where no one got over 50% would do the same thing.

5. No More than 75,000 Constituents per Riding: Make sure that Members of Parliament represent no more than 75,000 people, which would increase the size of the present House of Commons to about 470 members. 

- This will dramatically increase the size of the House of Commons, but in so doing, it will also dilute the control that political parties have over their members, freeing them up to more often vote their conscience as informed by the will of their constituents. It does this by making it more remote that a given MP will ever become a minister of the Crown; the desire for which is the primary reason that MPs are loyal to their parties.  

6. National Referenda: Citizens should be able to trigger a referendum on any issue, subject to strict criteria, such as 50% of national electors signing a petition within a 90 day period demanding the same. 

- Citizens should be able to launch national referenda on issues of the day. It should be hard to do this, limiting the number of referenda that may go ahead, but the option should be available so that whether or not referenda are launched is not entirely subject to the interests of political parties.

7. Senate Reform: The Senate should be elected, with elections being organized by whatever method suits the provinces and territories that they represent, with the Primer Minister nominating the winners as future senators. However, an elected Senate should continue with its traditional "sober second thought" role so as to not become a legislative competitor to the House of Commons. 

- It is time for an elected Senate in Canada. Our constitutional framework requires that the Senate only perform a “sober second thought” role, and that the lead legislature still be the House of Commons. Nonetheless, as long as this basic role does not change, there is no reason why the Senate cannot be elected - there are elected Senators right now.

8. Restore Public Financing of Political Parties: The yearly stipend that political parties used to receive should be restored, but with the caveat that citizens should be able to direct their stipend to whatever political party they prefer, perhaps through the use of a box on their yearly income tax form. 

- It may make sense to restore the yearly public stipend to political parties, perhaps at a rate of $2.00 per voter. It its previous incarnation, the yearly stipend was awarded based on the results of the previous election, so that parties like the Greens would get, say 4% of all available funds because the got 4% of the popular vote in the previous election. This could not be changed between elections no matter what the political party in question did in the years after the election in question. If voters could direct these funds between elections on their tax forms, they would have an ability to reward those parties that performed well, and punish those that didn’t by directing their stipend to whatever party suited their fancy and withholding it from others, between elections.      

Again, these potential changes could be put to the population in a national referendum on democratic reform. As noted, whatever they say "yes" to with 55% + support should be implemented as soon as possible. A national referendum could be said to be required so that reform of our democracy is not subject to the interests of political parties which work within the system, but should never be rulers of that same system; their conflict of interest is crystal clear. 

The potential Referendum Questions follow.

1. Should Members of Parliament be limited to serving or no more than 12 consecutive years?

2. Should constituents be able to recall their Members of Parliament?

3. Should voting be mandatory?

4. Should citizens elect their representatives through the use of a preferential or ranked ballot? (Alternative - Should citizens elect their representatives through the use of a run-off election after the main vote, where if no one got more than 50% of the vote, then there would be a run-off election between the top two candidates, to make sure the winner can show they received more than 50% of the vote?) 

5. Should Members of Parliament represent no more than an average of 75,000 constituents?

6. Should citizens have the ability to trigger national referenda?

7. Should Senators be elected?

8. Should the yearly stipend to political parties be restored with the caveat that citizens should be able to direct the payments between elections? 

The Sedition That Didn't Happen

On August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., stood in front of the Lincoln Memorial on the Washington Mall and gave the iconic speech of the civil rights era. An estimated 250,000 people were in attendance as part of the March for Jobs and Freedom.

The March was peaceful.

Does anyone doubt that, had Dr. King led a riot that attacked the Capitol buildings as an act of insurrection designed to thwart constitutional processes, that he would have been arrested, tried for sedition, convicted, and then either sent to jail for the rest of his life or hanged from the neck until he was dead?

That would have been the right thing to do. 

How to Defeat COVID-19 in 6 weeks WITHOUT a Vaccine!!

 A letter to the Premier of my province...

Hello Premier Ford,

Thank you for your leadership during this difficult time. I would like to take this opportunity to discuss an alternative approach to the COVID-19 pandemic that I believe would allow us to get the situation entirely under control until such a time that we are able to deploy an effective vaccine.

The approach is based on quick antigen tests of the type that can give results in 15 minutes or less. Some of these tests can show whether a person has COVID-19 even when they are asymptomatic. Health Canada is reviewing about ten of these at the moment, but has only approved one, and this one test has barely been deployed. I'll discuss the limitations of the tests and how to deal with them as I outline the proposed approach for dealing with the pandemic.

The basic idea for controlling COVID-19 and rendering it nothing but a nuisance is the simple fact that without constantly accessing new hosts, COVID-19 will burn out and disappear. The thousands of people who are newly infected every single day in Canada are the lifeblood of COVID-19. 

Cut off the disease's access to new hosts, and it is finished and we can get back to normal.

To get this under control, I propose mass testing based on the use of the quick antigen tests mentioned above, coupled quarantine. Specially, it would start with testing every single person in the province over a three day period, and requiring mandatory and legally-enforced quarantine for anyone who is found to carry the disease. Two weeks after the first round of testing, we repeat the entire thing. Then we do it all again two weeks after that, ending three rounds of mass testing in a month and a half.

There should be virtually no COVID-19 left to deal with in Ontario after this as the disease will have had no way to spread. 

While we would obviously keep long term care facilities and persons with underlying illnesses in lock down to safeguard them against even the remnants of the disease, everyone else could go back to normal.

Because there would be some COVID-19 left in the community after even this mass effort, and because some could come in from other jurisdictions, we would have to repeat the three days of testing every six weeks or so after the end of the first three rounds just to make sure that we keep the disease under control until we can access vaccines that can end the pandemic. Nonetheless, this proposal gets everyone back to work, and all children back to school. If we want to wrestle COVID-19 to the ground, the above proposal is how we can do it.

One significant concern with this proposal is the fact that these tests are not as effective as PCR tests (although, unlike those tests, they can detect the illness in asymptomatic people.) The sensitivity that Health Canada demands for antigen tests is 80%, and while many of these tests can best that result, they are generally inferior to PCR tests. The concern then is that if you test the entire population using these tests, and the tests are only 85% effective, for example, this means that 15% of the population will have results that do not accurately gauge whether or not they actually have COVID-19. If these people can continue to circulate in the general population, the disease will continue to spread.

The answer to this is rather simple. Don't give everyone one test...give them two.

If two tests are given and the known sensitivity of each test is 85%, should the tests give the same result, a simple probability calculation shows that the chances of that happening and the tests are mistaken are under 4%. Put another way, if two tests give the same result, the chances of a correct result are not 85%, they are over 96%. 

This isn't a mystery - it is just math.

Given the reduced sensitivity of quick antigen tests, the proposal would therefore see two of these tests given to every person in Ontario over a three day period. If the tests both show the person has COVID-19, they will be subject to a mandatory and legally-enforceable two week quarantine. If the tests give the same results showing that the person does not have COVID-19, they can continue to go about their business with masks and social distancing. Finally, if the tests give two different results, the person must go for a PCR test - if positive for COVID-19 they must quarantine for two weeks, and if not, they can go about their business.

There are problems with the proposal.

The first is that it would require 75 million quick antigen tests for the first six week effort, and 25 million every six weeks after that until we got a vaccine. The tests allow for this proposal because they are quick and cheap, but Health Canada has been very slow to approve the ones that are available. Even if they are approved, it will take the companies that make these tests some time to get enough in hand to allow the above proposal to work.

The second issue is that such a proposal will take health care and other resources away from their important work during the days of testing - even organizing something like this will be a massive undertaking (Note - these tests cannot be administered at home, but require someone with at least some small degree of training.) Having said that, after the six weeks of testing, we would be in a situation much closer to normal, and we will be able to reap the benefits, including assigning extra staff to long-term care facilities, and even just allowing some health professionals to take a break. In short, while difficult to implement, the benefits from doing this would be massive.

This is only a proposal. I am not a health professional, and I know you have the benefit of informed and intelligent advice as we work to deal with this catastrophe. I would note, however, that if case counts matter, then what we are doing is simply not working.  

If it is time for drastic action to wrestle this to the ground, you now have a plan.

Thank you for your attention to this matter,

Stay safe,

Putin's Pride!

He has played an American President like a piano, including manipulating much of the American electorate to deftly get the man elected.

Now, as more chaos beckons, there can be no doubt that Putin's internet trolls are bombarding social networks of all sorts with every type of exhortation to violence and mayhem!

How does America not realize how completely they have been and are still being played?

Brazil Trump!

We all saw what happened. It was not ANTIFA. It was not Black Lives Matter. It was Trump's Tribe - people who prefer myths to reality, and the feeling of belonging to any group, even the most odious and despicable ones, to membership in the civil commonwealth.

Now, the fallout.

Trump has had the ability to destroy any Republican who opposed him, and regularly threatened to do so. Don't blame them. Lindsey and Mitch were just trying to survive...it is what they do. He fired every single official who got in his way, regardless of the quality of their service, or objectivity if their advice.

It took Trump's followers shitting on the American flag and on their country - in the Capitol in an act of planned sedition encouraged by Trump and his minions - for hours on end for these fellow Republicans to have an opportunity to break with him.  

They know he is down, and they will want to keep him there. Expect a cavalcade of revelations.. his "kindness" to his allies is about to be returned in kind. 

Trump knows he faces multiple criminal charges after January 20th. I think he may be on a plane to Brazil in January 19th. 

The Terminator!

From The Terminator...

https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2021/01/05/arnold-schwarzenegger-on-why-republicans-must-stop-trump?utm_campaign=the-economist-today&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=salesforce-marketing-cloud&utm_term=2021-01-05&utm_content=article-link-2&etear=nl_today_2

Key quote...

"Claims of mass voter fraud have been rejected by court after court (59 cases were thrown out of courts including the Supreme Court), by the Department of Justice and by state election officials from both parties. There is no question about who won the presidential election and continuing this charade is stupid, crazy and evil."

Note that all of the claims about voting machines, and destroyed ballots and dead people voting were made in these lawsuits...these claims are obviously false. 

Trump's basic assertion that REPUBLICAN officials in states like Georgia and Arizona perpetrated or permitted a fraudulent election to overturn a Republican president, which is what he effectively claims, is insane.

In normal times, Trump's telephone call asking officials in Georgia to "find" votes to overturn a fair and free election would warrant immediate and successful impeachment proceedings, but he has so dulled our senses to what is right and normal that he got away with it. He has set a very dangerous precedent for the future.

American democracy has never been tested like this.

 

2021 Predictions!

Hi all!  Here we are again....predictions!

Sports...

MLB:

Blue Jays will make the playoffs, but lose in the first pound/playoff game.

NHL:

Toronto!

NBA:

LA again.

Economics...

COVID-19 will subside....everything will do well, for two months, then recession.

Stock markets will keep rocketing until March....then 30% drop.

Politics...

Cda federal election....Liberal majority. 185 seats. Trudeau resigns.

International...

USA - Trump tries to flee to Brazil, but is stopped and arrested for fed election law and tax issues. Then arrested for money laundering issues. Gets 15 years by the end of 2022.

Biden will prove to be barely competent....lots of good intentions, but issues with delivering the goods. The tone of US politics will slowly calm down, which will be his biggest accomplishment.

UK - Scotland will cause trouble...expect turmoil for years.  The economy will slump.

Europe - Italy will renew threat to leave. It will stay. Expect the formation of a European Army in three years.  Borders will close to African/other migrants, and many will be sent home.

China - PLA will enter Hong Kong to suppress freedom; may also fire on demonstrators fighting environmental damage.  Cult of personality will require people to swear allegiance to President Xi. Will blame the USA for COVID-19.

Environment...

GHG emissions will slow and drop outside of a crisis for the first time ever,