There's a very vocal bunch of conspiracy dumbfucks in Québec indeed. A lot of them were parts of racist groups such as La Meute, Storm Alliance etc. They railed against immigrants (mostly Muslims) before the pandemic and these gurus were able to recruits many uneducated people, many of whom had too much spare-time because of the lock-down. That movement is a disgusting mix of typical racism/xenophobia, Qanon idiocy and anti-vax lunacy. Add bits of 5G conspiracy and you've got one nasty shit stew.

Btw where do you live in Qc?

Yeah, I noticed a few names of people who are part of those groups. I guess islamophobia isn't as edgy as it used to, so now they've moved on to science denying...

And I'm from Laval.

Oh don't worry about them, once we're through with the virus these cunts will go back to their old racist habits...

Lockdown II: The Lockdownening - Looks like we'll have to go toilet paper shopping again !

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55538937

Let’s put an end to this myth right now: I am back in lockdown now on Day 9, and have not wiped my arse more often than usual.

Has that been with regular defecation, or are you shitting more and just choosing not to wipe to preserve toilet paper?

I have a sneaking suspicion that since the virus seems to be hitting everyone differently, it's causing a haggard shit storm .. we are recovering from it.. a month ago, and it was freaking rough man.. anyways

Quebec isn't the "Texas of Canada" for no reason.

I thought Alberta was the Texas of Canada?

I would've guessed Quebec was the Louisiana of Canada given the French link. Not sure if the conflict with English speakers is on the level depicted in the movie Southern Comfort though, haha.

As a Canadian, yes I agree with Alberta being the Texas of Canada. Specifically Calgary.

Was just checking the RIP list, and saw this guy:
https://www.metal-archives.com/artists/ ... les/835329

38 and dead by COVID-19. Still active on social media up to a week ago, too. Awful and sad.

I feel like there was a conversation about whether Quebec was or was not the Texas of Canada not so long ago, either here or in another thread. Or I'm in the Matrix and I have Déjà Vu.

Anyway, people of Quebec generally consider Alberta to be the Texas of Canada.

Wow. I know a lot of people really liked that Glacier album from 2020. Horribly sad.

That sucks. Just goes to show you - this shit is serious.

I'm still in FL and the governor has no restrictions of basically any kind. I was part of the comedy scene for five years and am watching people just go about doing shit for comedy like nothing is going on. Just baffling really. It's insanity.

No doubt about that.

In Germany the screws have been tightened even more. Lockdown until end of January, which will be further extended I believe, and further restrictions. 2021 will be fun.


He will not be the only one so far and definitely not the last. 38 .. that is no age.

I had another little conversation with a virus skeptic/Trump supporter on a Discord metal server today. It started when he said that Trump was great because he cut taxes and boosted the economy. To which I replied: he inherited an already growing economy and cutting taxes isn't wise because it means underfunded government and government services.

So he turned around and said that Trump was one of the first people to warn Americans about the virus, and that he tried to close the US to Chinese travel for virus prevention but everyone called him racist and xenophobic for it. To which I replied: the virus wasn't just present in China at that point and Trump was really slow to react to it in pretty much every other way. The guy came back with "As was every world leader. It's not exactly easy to figure out how to deal with something that's brand new that no one has seen before." To which I responded: "It's not that hard, it's just a virus. It can be contained like every other one. It will die without hosts. And New Zealand and Australia reacted quick and they're basically back to normal now."

Then he said "Japan never shut down, and they didn't have a huge spike." To which I responded that yes, they did shut down, it's possible that the virus strain there is weaker, and that their culture places greater emphasis on personal responsibility and respecting elders, all of which contribute to a more virus-conscious society. He decided to end the conversation there, saying that he wanted to talk about metal instead.

It's interesting because 1) his statements were easily refuted and 2) he didn't try to persist in the argument, like I'd expect a Trump supporter to do. Not sure how that can be explained.

He raised my taxes. Also, the tax bill made it so that you don’t get tax breaks anymore, for property destruction, by earthquakes, or wildfires, but you can still get a tax break, in the case of hurricanes. Not hard to figure out why they did that.

Interesting that Test & Trace seems to have dropped off the radar - it's back to full lockdown & a thousand dying per day.

It's almost as if the mixed messaging being put out by the various media, scientific, and government bodies hasn't helped one bit. A major failing of our government regarding COVID was not appointing a cross-party group to run things, and take it out of the realm of politics. As it is, we're stuck with responses that are still subject to media bleating (and therefore political career worrying) about various -isms whenever a decision is made.

This week the the Guardian is doing 'government aren't being firm enough !', and the Mail is doing 'this is all fascist oppression !' - I'm sure they'll change sides again next week.

I've observed that in countries with centre-left and non-right-wing governments, right-wing opposition has alternated between blaming the government for being too heavy handed with restrictions, and not making decisive enough measures for restrictions. However, centre and left media has mostly just congratulated those governments - deservedly - for their covid responses, which has come across as a much more consistent stance rooted in actual principles (let's ignore for the time being that it's not, and it's just a convenient reality of the current political climate).

I remember that back in spring, Finnish unbiased media ran a few opinion pieces from various academics who were concerned about the legality and morality of tough measures. Those voices have quieted down, as the reality of different responses (countries like UK and Sweden, compared to Finland or New Zealand, for example) has become too apparent for even moldy academics to deny. The only remaining thing is the intermittent bout of denial and deflection from Sweden's own Nils Tegnell, whose seemingly infinite layers of delusion, and inability to acknowledge his own mistakes, have dictated the country's ruinous covid response.

The same has been going on here for nearly a year now:
- hard lockdown, severe restrictions = "pharmafascism, oppression, our rights are being canceled!!!"
- softer measures, gradual reopenings = "the pandemic is still raging, what the hell is the government doing about it???"

Said sentiment actually comes from people but of course opposition parties ride it all the way, the result being that in order to avoid more severe crises the powers that be have been doing loads of back and forth interventions which, watch out for the spoilers here, have proven depressingly ineffective, as we're still routinely getting tens of thousands of new infected and hundreds of deceased every single day.
I really hope the vaccination campaigns can realistically curb this mess, otherwise the not so distant future (be it in terms of health, economy, politics, you name it) is looking pretty damn bleak.

This was exactly the case here. When the government made a total lockdown they were "too heavy" and now that they have given the local governments the tools to take these decisions themselves (and the right wing is doing absolutely nothing wherever they have control) it's somehow still their fault. It's disgusting.

Your next post is #4,000.

Better make it a good one.

I'm afraid there won't be enough vaccinated people. It's completely voluntary and I'm the only one in my family who responded to the government's questionnaire and ''expressed the interest in getting vaccinated'', which immediately put me on a list that will be sorted by priority.

Ontario here, and most people I know would also consider Alberta the Texas of Canada lol I would personally not consider Québec that way at all, regardless of the current shit (pun intended ) government. Heck, in many ways Québec is more progressive (CAQ exempted) than English Canada...or maybe I'm just jealous of the fact that they can actually field a decent leftwing party that is actually a leftwing party and know how to organise and execute effective, largescale strikes lol

Something staggering that I just realized. Within the next week or two, Covid-19 deaths in the United States will exceed the total number of American casualties in World War II

Covid-19 is the fifth deadliest event in American history. The four that are higher: American Civil War, 1918 Influenza Pandemic, HIV/AIDS, Genocide of Native Americans

Good article about Native Americans, virgin-soil-epidemic hypothesis and COVID-19: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/disease-has-never-been-just-disease-native-americans/610852/.

Antivaccine dad murdered his 9 yrs old son and killed himself due vaccination.

I don't even know what to say. Antivaxxers should be put in fucking jail.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/stephen-o ... r-vaccines

Got put on the list at my local doctor's office for the Moderna vaccine.

My wife already had both doses of the Pfizer vaccine. She got the second dose Friday and spent most of the weekend feeling like shit. Definitely not looking forward to that part of it.

I read an article recently comparing the 1918 flu pandemic to COVID-19 in the USA. The parallels are astonishing. We basically learned nothing from that, and are reliving that nightmare all over again, start to finish. The only difference would be that they didn't have vaccine technology, but all the other societal / behavioral factors are playing out exactly the same.

Currently watching a BBC documentary on the origins of & initial response to COVID - and wow, but the lengths that the Chinese have gone to to lie about it all the way along ?

The scientists working to sequence the virus and drive the public response ? and inform the world of what they've found ? They were told to suppress the information, and required to destroy or turn over their work to the party officialdom. The government then proceeded to lie about transmission methods and rates.

Fair play to the BBC - they've got everyone from public health specialists, state journalists, to local doctors, to a state infectious disease specialist speaking only on terms of anonymity so that his family can't be gotten at by the gestapo stasi what are they called these days ?

Had China actually stayed truthful and did their best not to let the disease out of its borders, we would be living in a very different world right now. No millions of people dying, no millions losing their minds in quarantine and doing insane stuff, no anti-maskers trying to be massive assholes, no Capitol Hill riot that further divides a country, and of course, we would have a lot more to worry about then some dumb disease. I would pay millions of dollars to go to that kind of reality.

Sorry if this has been mentioned already but about a month ago one of the musicians of the band Lucifer's friend passed away from the virus.

Yea, even if it means Trump being re-elected there's really no choice but to take that reality.

Also, when can we expect our apology from China for all of this?

The BBC programme ended with a message from the Chinese government; I paraphrase "we've done great, other countries ignored our advice, if only you'd tried harder there would not be a problem". (it'll be on the iPlayer / BBC America I'm sure, worth watching for the great interviews)

The official party line is "no mud sticking here !"; they don't acknowledge that either their lies nor those people & events officially suppressed exist, so you'll be waiting a long time for that apology

Just in-case anyone was in anyway convinced that only right-wing nutters have issues with the vaccination program - here's some nice fluffy left wing lunacy for you;

This group https://www.stopnewnormal.net/

Thought that this leaflet was appropriate, for some reason (image in spoilers, yes one of those Corbyns)

https://twitter.com/philipnormal/status/1355933383587725312/photo/1

Piers is a well-known conspiracy theorist and absolute fucking basket case, being one of the louder voices in the international "anti-lockdown" protests. This is entirely on-brand for him, but it's less about antisemitism and more corollary to PETA showing cows hanging off meathooks next to a bunch lynched of black people and saying "what's the difference?"

Surely to be left wing means to support society's most vulnerable, ie. to get vaccinated so you don't pass infections on to the elderly or people who are immunocompromised. Calling vaccines fascism doesn't make it so. If left-wing nutters are anti-vax, that's an attribute of their nuttiness in my books, not their leftism!

For me it's the horseshoe in action; this lot have decided that this much government control, following orders, queuing for injections, police patrols, 'papers please', all that pandemic beating stuff - they've decided that's fascist, hence the Auschwitz cartoon. Three degrees over the spectrum, the right wing loons have decided it's communism for exactly the same reasons, but they'd use Gulag cartoons, if they could draw.

There's a shop in the nearest town to me, the owners are proper tin-foil hat 'brownshirt under the bed' types (government is out to control us all, government informers at every door, they'll be first up the wall come the revolution, wibble wibble - S&P would love them) - they're going to start losing business as they've also decided that the whole pandemic response is a fascist takeover of the country (won't wear masks, won't get vaccinated, etc). They're the same people that sincerely believe that Boris Johnson couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag, but at the same time is capable of a highly organised coup. You tell me !

It's definitely all a symptom of political silliness. I'm glad in a way that these fringe idiots do exist; it gets them out into the open so that we can all indulge in the great British political past-time of laughing at them, not putting business their way, and so on.