the watcher

I'm fairly conservative and have voted conservative but yes, totally believe climate change is real.

U.S. AstraZeneca Study Shows Vaccine Gives Total Protection From Severe COVID-19

AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine is 100 percent effective in preventing severe disease and hospitalization, according to the results of a long-awaited U.S. trial released early Monday morning. The impressive figures—based on a massive trial which included more than 32,000 participants mostly based in America, but also in Chile and Peru—showed 79 percent efficacy against symptomatic disease and total protection from severe disease. Crucially, the trial identified absolutely no safety concerns and, specifically on the issue of blood clots that caused a wave of panic about the vaccine in some European countries, the independent committee found “no increased risk of thrombosis or events characterized by thrombosis.” The findings will now be sent to the Food and Drug Administration to support an application for emergency authorization of the vaccine.
U.S. AstraZeneca Study Shows Vaccine Gives Total Protection From Severe COVID-19 (thedailybeast.com)

This happened yesterday and it is important information for particular age group. A friend had his 1st dose of the vaccine at the vaccination center. Afterwards he began to have blurred vision on the way home. When he got home, he called the vaccination center for advice and to ask if he should go see a doctor or be hospitalized. He was told NOT to go to a doctor or a hospital, but just return to the vaccination center and pick up his glasses. *   -Shared from a friend.

The whole thing makes me nervous as hell.  I love the CFL game . I have no friggen idea if there is a solution other than tieing ourselves to an unsuccesful American leauge but you would think there would be. To me it smacks of curing a painful broken leg by shooting yourself in the head. I hope I'm wrong.

I know I shouldn't have,  but I went off on a guy in Superstore. Him and his 20 something daughter were walking around no mask, no space with other shoppers  and I just lost it. Then he said he didn't have to worry about Covid because Jesus was his salvation. That really put me over the top. It got a bit ugly. I must be getting Covid fatigue to get sucked into that.  Hurry up vaccines . ( I'm getting close )

I don't know if his math checks out or not, but I sure appreciate where he's coming from...
 
The CFL’s business model isn’t broken, its leadership has failed
John Hodge
 
"The CFL remains in crisis mode due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but I remain unconvinced that its business model is broken.
 
According to their financial reports, the Saskatchewan Roughriders produce approximately $40 million in annual gross revenue. The Winnipeg Blue Bombers generate $35 million, while the Edmonton Football Team checks in at $25 million.
 
It’s believed that the CFL’s gross revenue in a non-pandemic year is between $200 million and $240 million. As such, we can project that the league’s six privately-owned teams average between $17 million and $23 million in annual revenue.
 
Commissioner Randy Ambrosie caused a sense of panic in May 2020 when he told the House of Commons finance committee that the CFL’s nine teams lose $10 to $20 million collectively each year. That number sounds scary on the surface, but it’s hardly overwhelming in context.
 
Annual losses of $10 to $20 million mean the league only needs to increase revenue by five to ten per cent in order to start breaking even. If teams had an equalization fund for gate receipts and Grey Cup revenue — more on that in a moment — the losses would be easy to manage across nine franchises.
 
The CFL had an average attendance figure of 22,917 in 2019, which was third-best among North American professional sports leagues. That number is better than MLS (21,310), the NBA (17,844), and NHL (17,377).
 
Fans were buying tickets to games before COVID-19 and they will again when it’s safe to do so. The league should try to become less dependent on gate revenue — ticket sales account for approximately 35 percent of revenue in Saskatchewan, Winnipeg, and Edmonton — but selling tickets to live events is still a perfectly viable stream of revenue in the entertainment industry.
 
The CFL also does relatively well on television with its TSN contract worth approximately $50 million annually. Partnering with multiple networks would be smart from a marketing and exposure perspective, but the deal is respectable.
 
The Grey Cup also remains one of the most-viewed television broadcasts in Canada every year. It often finishes in the top five to ten, particularly in non-Olympic years.
 
The game was a blowout in 2019 but still finished as the year’s No. 9 television broadcast with 3.9 million viewers. Four games of the Toronto Raptors in the NBA Finals were ahead of it (4.3 million to 7.7 million) along with the Academy Awards (5.2 million), Super Bowl LIII (4.3 million), The Big Bang Theory series finale (4.3 million), and Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals (4.2 million).
 
Virtually everything that tops the annual list for television broadcast ratings in Canada is American. The Grey Cup is the exception. The Grey Cup is ours. It’s uniquely Canadian.
 
The CFL’s business model is not broken. It’s far from perfect, but it would be perfectly viable with better leadership that can explore new sources of revenue.
 
According to Frank Cosentino’s book A Passing Game: A History of the CFL, the league’s gross revenue in 1976 was $12.9 million. This would equate to $59 million today with inflation.
 
The league’s television contract with the CBC was worth $1.5 million and player spending was approximately $750,000 per team, which is $3.4 million in today’s dollars.
 
This means CFL players got 52 per cent of league revenue in 1976. Today, they receive approximately 25 per cent. For comparison, NFL players will receive 48 per cent of league revenue in 2021, while NHL and NBA players get 50 per cent.
 
Taking inflation into account, the CFL’s annual revenue has quadrupled since 1976 and the value of its television contract has increased by 700 per cent. Meanwhile, player costs have only increased by a little over 50 per cent.
 
The CFL doesn’t have a broken business model. If its business model was ever broken, it was broken in 1976.
 
There have always been ebbs and flows for the popularity of the CFL across its various markets. Struggles in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal are hardly a new phenomenon.
 
Average attendance in Montreal fell from 23,192 to 12,022 over course of the 1960s. It was the league’s largest market at the time and declining ticket sales were of grave concern to its stakeholders.
 
The Grey Cup was hosted in Montreal in 1969 to try to boost interest in the league. Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau was a strong supporter of the festivities, even performing the game’s ceremonial kickoff.
 
The Montreal initiative worked with ticket sales doubling in 1970. The average ticket price was $3.70, which is the equivalent of $25.44 today.
 
In his Grey Cup report, legendary CFL commissioner Jake Gaudaur stressed that it was important “that as many federal government representatives as possible be familiar with what Canadian football really is.”
 
Has the CFL and its leaders made a conscious effort to consistently remind our political leaders how important, special, and unique the league is? I’m not convinced they have.
 
One of the ways in which the league remained healthy through its leaner years was an equalization fund. Wealthier teams would subsidize those who had struggled financially the previous year, helping ensure that all nine teams remained viable.
 
It’s hard to believe today, but two teams that received a lot of financial assistance over the years were Saskatchewan and Winnipeg. It’s tough to imagine Toronto, Montreal, and B.C. becoming CFL powerhouses in the future, but the same could have been said of the Roughriders and Blue Bombers in the not-too-distant past.
 
We also live in a world where new iterations of nostalgic properties are exploited for profit across the entertainment industry. Hawaii Five-0, Magnum P.I., and MacGyver are all among the highest-rated scripted shows on television, while films like Dolittle, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Bad Boys for Life dominate at the box office.
 
Nostalgic brands print money for Hollywood, but the CFL isn’t viable? That’s a joke.
 
I’m not an accountant or a corporate CEO. I don’t have access to the league’s exact financial figures, nor does anyone who’d be willing to disclose them on the record.
 
With that said, even I can see that the CFL generates plenty of annual revenue with lots of room for growth. It has solid attendance numbers, a strong television partner, and one of the country’s most popular television broadcasts of the year.
 
It’s disingenuous to say that the CFL doesn’t have a viable business model when revenue has increased so dramatically relative to its expenses over the decades. There’s money to be made. The league’s history proves that.
 
The CFL will never be a financial powerhouse like the NFL, but it doesn’t have to be. The CFL is an accessible product that provides high-quality entertainment and celebrates our country’s rich heritage.
 
I believe the CFL could become profitable again by 2022 or 2023 with proper leadership in place and that’s with or without the XFL."

As a Christian, you have to be well aware that God endowed us with reason among other things. Maybe just maybe vaccinations, social distancing etc are some of his tools to protect us.

The Christian churches opposed vaccination when it first appeared, and even advised against lightning rods for the same reason- if God wants to kill you, you shouldn't interfere with that. This thinking is so wrong for so many reasons. As a contrast, the Dalai Lama has said that if religion conflicts with science, we ought to go with science.

I know I shouldn't have,  but I went off on a guy in Superstore. Him and his 20 something daughter were walking around no mask, no space with other shoppers  and I just lost it. Then he said he didn't have to worry about Covid because Jesus was his salvation. That really put me over the top. It got a bit ugly. I must be getting Covid fatigue to get sucked into that.  Hurry up vaccines . ( I'm getting close )

My lady and I are booked for our shot on April 2nd. Yaaaay!! (My wife says I should have been shot long ago)

69 years and up can now book.
 
I just booked my mother in for April 7th. I'm almost teary. 

There is so much bullshit being disseminated out there, and not just about COVID and variants, that it is increasingly difficult to tell what is true.

violent   Christians.
 
no problem there. 
 

Not quite if this belongs here, but.....
 
                              

Boy that's a wholesale uprooting of the school system. It will be interesting to see how it turns out

simple, cheap, available now solution, stopmburning coal to produce power.  convert to renewable.
there is no longer any justification for continuing to burn coal.

same thing in the R.M. of Springfield. mainly rural , and south eastern, only contact from the NDP was asking for money. otherwise, nothing, not even a yard sign.

Let me tell you about the candidates that ran in my Provincal  riding. But first I got rearranged  and am now in Turtle Mountain. I'm 40 minutes from Morden/ Winkler. I am there at least once a week. .... My current MLA. has his office in Virden. About a 3 hour drive away or a 6 hour round trip. 2x as far as I am from Winnipeg.
But back to my candidates.  The Pcs are going to win here no doubt but the NDP candidate was a young women who lives in Winnipeg. Born and raised in Eastern Manitoba. I never saw her. No phone call. No meetings. No one came to coffee shops to talk. Nothing. A local small town paper contacted ALL the candidate's but only the Pcs and Green responded to give a bio and get some FREE advertising. At one point I promised myself that I'd vote for the 1st candidate that asked for my vote.  So apparently the NDP a party that started out as a farmers party doesn't believe there is one person in the riding  that covers almost half the width of the province, worthy of being their candidate.
I'll  add in, I'm the voter opposition parties want . I've voted PC, Liberal and NDP in the past.  
It's alright to complain that these rural ridings that could run a poorly trained seal and still go PC  but that will never change till the other parties at least try.
 

Let me tell you about the candidates that ran in my Provincal  riding. But first I got rearranged  and am now in Turtle Mountain. I'm 40 minutes from Morden/ Winkler. I am there at least once a week. .... My current MLA. has his office in Virden. About a 3 hour drive away or a 6 hour round trip. 2x as far as I am from Winnipeg.
But back to my candidates.  The Pcs are going to win here no doubt but the NDP candidate was a young women who lives in Winnipeg. Born and raised in Eastern Manitoba. I never saw her. No phone call. No meetings. No one came to coffee shops to talk. Nothing. A local small town paper contacted ALL the candidate's but only the Pcs and Green responded to give a bio and get some FREE advertising. At one point I promised myself that I'd vote for the 1st candidate that asked for my vote.  So apparently the NDP a party that started out as a farmers party doesn't believe there is one person in the riding  that covers almost half the width of the province, worthy of being their candidate.
I'll  add in, I'm the voter opposition parties want . I've voted PC, Liberal and NDP in the past.  
It's alright to complain that these rural ridings that could run a poorly trained seal and still go PC  but that will never change till the other parties at least try.
 

Let me tell you about the candidates that ran in my Provincal  riding. But first I got rearranged  and am now in Turtle Mountain. I'm 40 minutes from Morden/ Winkler. I am there at least once a week. .... My current MLA. has his office in Virden. About a 3 hour drive away or a 6 hour round trip. 2x as far as I am from Winnipeg.
But back to my candidates.  The Pcs are going to win here no doubt but the NDP candidate was a young women who lives in Winnipeg. Born and raised in Eastern Manitoba. I never saw her. No phone call. No meetings. No one came to coffee shops to talk. Nothing. A local small town paper contacted ALL the candidate's but only the Pcs and Green responded to give a bio and get some FREE advertising. At one point I promised myself that I'd vote for the 1st candidate that asked for my vote.  So apparently the NDP a party that started out as a farmers party doesn't believe there is one person in the riding  that covers almost half the width of the province, worthy of being their candidate.
I'll  add in, I'm the voter opposition parties want . I've voted PC, Liberal and NDP in the past.  
It's alright to complain that these rural ridings that could run a poorly trained seal and still go PC  but that will never change till the other parties at least try.
 

Let me tell you about the candidates that ran in my Provincal  riding. But first I got rearranged  and am now in Turtle Mountain. I'm 40 minutes from Morden/ Winkler. I am there at least once a week. .... My current MLA. has his office in Virden. About a 3 hour drive away or a 6 hour round trip. 2x as far as I am from Winnipeg.
But back to my candidates.  The Pcs are going to win here no doubt but the NDP candidate was a young women who lives in Winnipeg. Born and raised in Eastern Manitoba. I never saw her. No phone call. No meetings. No one came to coffee shops to talk. Nothing. A local small town paper contacted ALL the candidate's but only the Pcs and Green responded to give a bio and get some FREE advertising. At one point I promised myself that I'd vote for the 1st candidate that asked for my vote.  So apparently the NDP a party that started out as a farmers party doesn't believe there is one person in the riding  that covers almost half the width of the province, worthy of being their candidate.
I'll  add in, I'm the voter opposition parties want . I've voted PC, Liberal and NDP in the past.  
It's alright to complain that these rural ridings that could run a poorly trained seal and still go PC  but that will never change till the other parties at least try.
 

I got a feeling that attendance will be up once we are back to normal. People have spent the last year in their houses people will want to get out and do stuff again. 

https://3downnation.com/2021/03/10/wade-miller-says-potential-xfl-partnership-is-not-due-to-cfls-financial-struggles/
I think the only way this "plan" works without massive outrage from CFL fans is by keeping the institution of Canadian football intact. The idea of sharing resources makes sense from a partnership standpoint but the fabric of our game cannot be compromised in doing so.
I know it's early, as Miller says, but I have no idea what to make of this right now. It's unsettling as hell, though. The CFL is in a rough spot right now.

These people are teaching a whole new generation of stupid.