Here we are, two days after the actual briefing, at last running it through that most important of all cultural lenses: that of fandom and trivia! Yes, we’re here in 2022, on the cutting edge of the Zeitgeist, where complex, critical issues can only be understood in terms of principles of worship and faith that we learned in Sunday School, and God help you if you’re not a Christian. Erin O’Toole won’t. Can’t. Whatever.
Here’s our video, which CPAC initially screwed up so it had one literal hour of dead airtime before the actual speech began, but they’ve now fixed it. Congratulations to the over 140,000 people who persevered and watched it anyway. 633 Likes, zero Dislikes for the record. It was indeed a good one. Especially for a guy who just tested positive for Covid-19.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau comments as a protest against COVID-19 vaccine mandates continues in Ottawa. The downtown area in the nation’s capital has been gridlocked since the protest began January 28 on Parliament Hill. The prime minister is speaking from self-isolation after testing positive for COVID-19. Two of his children have also tested positive.
Fuzzy is not another dwarf. It’s just how I feel today, since I got up before 10am for once in my life. Let’s get right into it. God knows, my skating trip is off for today and there’s fuckall else to do.
Coldest Ice Pellets in over 20 years. Today at 11AM the airport reported "Ice Pellets" and a temperature of -14°C. The last time we had ice pellets this cold was January 3rd, 1999.
The all time coldest was -19.1°C on Jan 27, 1994.#OttWeather
Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer, particularly if they’re running a fever and can operate as hot water bottles!
TORONTO (The Borowitz Report)—Canada, already bracing for the possible inflow of millions of American refugees in November, might have made matters worse by releasing an unacceptably adorable photo of its Prime Minister hugging two baby pandas, Canadians fear.
Our video is here, with only 312 people watching:
On Parliament Hill, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau discusses the federal government’s response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the spread of the Omicron variant. He is joined by Jean-Yves Duclos, the federal minister of health.
I’m calling it anyway: regular Wednesday 11:30am Covid briefings until we’re out of this whole “setting record highs in hospital admissions and new cases” mess, which could be March, if then. And of course during this pandemic when is the ONLY standing appointment I have each week? Wednesday, at 11am.
I feel seen.
Nonetheless, I have changed the appointment, because I WILL NOT BE THWARTED GODDAMMIT! I’m too bored. You wouldn’t like me when I’m bored. Hell, most people don’t even like me when I’m fully entertained.
So, come along with me as I attempt to wrest from a federal covid briefing all the entertainment value that may be latent therein, and quite a bit more if my English prof’s notes (“you have over-read this haiku, and I don’t have time to read fourteen pages”) are anything to go by. By which to go. Whatever.
Let’s start with some freshly-made outrage, shall we?
That’s right: NO MASKS! Shock! Horror! Also, we can’t see the Famous Tattoo from this angle! Call the DailyFail and the NatPoPo! Are we all outraged? Flushed with adrenaline and grasping for our phones? Good, good. My work here is done. Counts as aerobic exercise, people! Probably the most that some of us will get all year.
You see, I then looked at the date and it was 2018. *sad trombone* Doesn’t that seem like ancient history now? It was the Pre-Covidian Age, an era without masks. Masks are to 2022 what fedoras were to 1936. Just don’t tip them; tip your delivery worker!
Also, tips are a way for capitalists to push the burden of fair payment for workers off itself and onto its customers. The only wage should be a living wage.
The Army raising its max bonus for new recruits to $50k right now is such a clear example of how this country is set up. We always have money for war, but can't feed, house, or test the poor.
— Read Teaching to Transgress by bell hooks (@JoshuaPotash) January 13, 2022
it's so much worse than CEO pay. I know that's the easy one to grok, but the nearly $700M in dividends they paid out to mostly the investor class (~98% went to investment institutions) as profit far outweighs the C suite pay. That's roughly $2k/yr for every employee by my math https://t.co/1GAgWxMvav
But where was I before I scrambled to the top of my soapbox (don’t blame me, it’s the only way I can see from the cheap seats!). Right, about to start with the Covid briefing which is, for once, suspiciously almost on time.
Here’s our video:
On Parliament Hill, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau discusses the federal government’s response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the spread of the Omicron variant. He is joined by federal ministers Jean-Yves Duclos (health), Filomena Tassi (public services and procurement) and Mary Ng (international trade). Responding to questions from reporters, the prime minister comments on Quebec’s announcement that it is considering a financial penalty for residents who refuse to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
Ten thousand views, by the Seven Hours Later point. Impressive, and possibly a record. People are much more engaged with this one than they were with earlier briefings, perhaps because the gravity of the situation, and the degree to which it was preventable all along, is beginning to sink in. Yeah, that’s what passes for optimism in my house at least these days.
Well Possums, here we are again. What will we do for the two year anniversary of the Covid Briefing Bingo in May? I don’t know about you, but I’m already picking out a dress for the party.
Viktor and Rolf GET me
Let’s all sing the Covid Song!
I believe I can see the future ‘Cause I repeat the same routine I think I used to have a purpose Then again, that might have been a dream I think I used to have a voice Now I never make a sound And I just do what I’ve been told I really don’t want them to come around, oh no Every day is exactly the same Every day is exactly the same There is no love here and there is no pain Every day is exactly the same I can feel their eyes are watching In case I lose myself again Sometimes I think I’m happy here Sometimes, yet I still pretend I can’t remember how this got started But I can tell you exactly how it will end Every day is exactly the same Every day is exactly the same There is no love here and there is no pain Every day is exactly the same I’m writing on a little piece of paper I’m hoping someday I might find Well I’ll hide it behind something They wont look behind I am still inside here A little bit comes bleeding through I wish this could’ve been any other way But I just don’t know, I don’t know What else I can do Every day is exactly the same Every day is exactly the same There is no love here and there is no pain Every day is exactly the same Every day is exactly the same Every day is exactly the same There is no love here and there is no pain Every day is exactly the same
In any case, by now you know how these work. Here’s our video from Cpac with 184 watching because NOBODY thinks Justin Trudeau will be on time, even if it’s just a videocast from his own house.
On Parliament Hill, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau discusses the federal government’s response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the spread of the Omicron variant. He is joined by federal ministers Chrystia Freeland (finance) and Jean-Yves Duclos (health), as well as Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, and Dr. Howard Njoo, deputy chief public health officer.
The intimacy of those home-based briefings is kind of ironic; it’s like being in a Zoom meeting with your boss’s boss’s boss’s boss, with him making jokey references to his youngest kid and trying to really connect, you know?
Nonetheless, that IS a substantial part of the man’s job, as others have pointed out.
The premier of every province has addressed this crisis in the last seven days, including over the Christmas holidays. Justin Trudeau will do so tomorrow. He should have done so already.
We’re baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack! Did you miss us, Possums? We missed you too. If we could, we’d buy each of you a copy of Iyanla Vanzant’s book In The Meantime, because that’s very much where we are: after an election, but before Parliament gets back to work.
We’ve got a full house down on Wellington Street, so mark your “Reporter sits in the front row” square. Either the political reportage class of Canada is deathly bored after an election OR they suspect big news. We’re back at the Soon-To-Be-Renamed-If-I’m-Any-Guesser Sir John A. MacDonald building, so I guess even the nomenclature is liminal today.
I was supposed to be finishing my degree as of September, but thanks to paperwork that got pushed to January, so this entire Fall season is liminal for me. As is the Covidian Age, for us all, Possums. For all of us.
Let’s hope it’s a soft landing, Possums.
Here’s our video, Possums. As usual, from CPAC, with a walloping 427 people watching. The reporters got quite the lecture from some young guy in jeans, to which they paid more attention than reporters pay most people, so it must have been important, but the sound was off. C’mon, CPAC, we want our inside scoop!
raincoaster 