the watcher

From Pembina Valley on line : South Central Manitoba continues to trend below the provincial average when it comes to COVID-19 vaccine uptake. As of Tuesday, 60.3 per cent of Manitoba adults have received the COVID-19 vaccine. That is considerably higher than most districts in the region which includes: Lorne/Louise/Pembina at 55.1 per cent Grey at 51.9 per cent Carman at 51 per cent Red River South at 48 per cent Morden at 45.4 per cent Morris at 43.1 per cent Roland/Thompson at 38.6 per cent Altona at 33.5 per cent Winkler at 21.5 per cent Last month, the province announced that Stanley had the lowest vaccine uptake among all districts in our province. As of April 29th, only 6.1 per cent of adult residents had been vaccinated. Since then, that number has increased to 10.4 per cent. The exception, according to statistics posted by public health on Tuesday, is MacDonald which posted a 63.7 per cent vaccine uptake among adults in the district. Thankfully I'm a resident in the Lorne /Louise/ Pembina district. One of the things I don't think some of these non compliant/ nonvacc areas realize is just how much business they are losing. I'm not particularly over the top on following the rules. I follow best as I can, bend occasionally, mask as much as possible, follow the general spirit and direction of the rules..... and even I am now avoiding the low vaccination areas as much as possible. When we do have to go there we try to hit buisnesses we know follow the rules. But we probably now send %25 of the business to that area that we use to. We are not alone in this. Many of the people we know are doing the same.

I took a couple of my dogs to the Vet today. I was settling up with the Vet tech who was a little , sweet, soft spoken girl when in walked a young idiot with no mask. And boom ! Out of the sweet soft spoken Vet tech roars this loud voice " Sir ! You can not come in here without a mask! To which the idiot said in a snarky voice " I don't have one " My little Vet tech undaunted snaped back" Then you have to leave. I can come serve you out there or I can give you a mask " The big idiot surrendered to the 100 lb girl and masked up. What an awesome young lady.

I've said over and over, Trump was/ is a symptom not the cause. A stable society would never have elected him. The fact that up to % 20 of their population believe the fairy tales of Qanon shows that their madness will continue.

Thats got some great potential if its done right. I made it to book 9. but a couple of my kids read the whole series. It was a great story.

It ironically, spreads like a disease.

I for one am shocked !!! 🙈🙉🙊

To be fair they are just over half of our population.. So we are roughly one third of their death rate.

It's a slap in the face to every kid who graduated last year. They missed out on all the traditional grad stuff but did their best to do something special. Locally they held a parade with each kid in some kind of a vehicle that they had decorated . Alot of the town and surrounding area came out to cheer them on. But this self aggrandizing church is to important for that type of forward thinking. I have no doubt it will be quietly dismissed with a few public " tsk, tsks" by the province.

It would be simple to end any discussion with A clear " I was not there " Controversy ended. The second that hasn't been said it doesn't look good. So it's one of 2 things.1- Stupid to be there or 2- Stupid to not make a simple clear statement

Gee, I wonder why we are the worst province ?

We had a pretty good handle on it. All that was required ( in my opinion ) to keep it under control till the vaccines caught up was enforcement on those breaking the rules, especially those flaunting them. In the Pembina Valley I could see the percentage of masked people and buisnesses enforcing policy just sliding down. Our tough talking ,firey Premiere turns out to be a coward. I can't see it any other way.

I think for some, liberty and freedom mean the right to do whatever you want or desire to do . Which is not part of Canadian society and to my knowledge has not been part of any society in the history of mankind.

Not just food, water and healthcare but social acceptence of people that are different than us. It like a fork in the road. Which way will we choose ? I really don't know.

I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with the Fermi paradox. Science and mathematics say there must be other intelligent life in the universe. The paradox is of course , where is it ? ONE of the many solutions is that no civilization can get past where we are. That it will always destroy itself or collapse. I'm leaning more that way all the time. We seem to be reverting to a less logical, intellectual , science based time. Yet we still maintain the ability for ultimate destruction.

" read that the pipeline itself is fine, and was not disabled at all, and the problem is with the billing system caused by corprate malfeasance failing to secure adequately." The horrible thing is it doesn't matter anymore. What's real, what the truth is, what the cause is, really doesn't matter. It will be spun to suit the needs of those in power or with a microphone.

"But wait ! If you act now we will throw in a free Gaetz. Yes, you heard it right ! A free Gaetz at no extra charge ! That's one authentic Trump and a free Gaetz all for one low, low price. " Where's the Chamwow guy ? He may as well do all the news broadcasts. They have become a laughing stock. A very well nuclear armed laughing stock.

I found this interesting, it's basicly about the shifting attitudes on the area where the latest Israeli/ Palestinian conflict flared up. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/13/violence-jerusalem-holy-sites-israeli-right-temple-mount

A tad depressing isn't it.

Good , I wouldn't want a Prime Minister that was found to be offically unethical more than 2 times. Teflon Trudeau.

I always find the problem when talk of changing our healthcare system comes up everyone panics because we live so close to one of the worst and most expensive systems to the south of us. Many other countries have good systems that include some forms of private/ user fee type of systems. Many of them cost less than ours and run as or more efficiently. But not all.

Their system is such a convoluted thing it makes really hard to fix. Maybe they can but I'm not so sure.

It is already burning down and you ( or me for that matter ) aren't going to like the results. If things proceed as " they " plan the far right won't be allowed to lose the next " election ". That's in quotes because it won't really be an election.

I'll give you that. It's a fine line between seeing far right boogie men everywhere and ignoring real far right threats. There is no denying it does exist here.

Even Wexit doesn't try to do away with democracy.

I think you were missing my point.I dont disagree at all with what you are saying. Who we elect does make a big difference in the direction we go. My point was those who say they are all the same have a certain amount of credence.That at times many politicians lower the bar. The very fact that Medicare came in here shows that our system works. Our ability and willingness to step outside of the main 2 parties has made huge contributions to the nature and structure of Canadian society. The NDP, the Quebec separatist movement , the Reform party, Social Credit party have all , changed our political scene and our society. But none of this has anything to do with the anti democratic movement in the US. It is different than all the arguments over ideologies that have preceded. There is no convincing middle ground people over it rather eliminating the votes of those who don't agree... My point was that you can't compare what is going on now in the US with what we see here in Canada now.