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It is a tenet of the Catholic dogma that the pope is infallible, being a reincarnation of St Peter.

Augustine has not impressed me as being an heir-apparent to Harris. He looks ok but those are pretty big shoes to fill. Oliviera showed promise but his injury after-effects may be a concern.

Ultra-contagious Covid Delta variant is 'wreaking havoc' worldwide In Bangladesh, troops are preparing to patrol the streets to enforce newly imposed stay-at-home orders. Australia, recently heralded as a pandemic success story, is returning to strict lockdowns. Scotland is seeing a record-breaking surge in new coronavirus infections. Indonesia is teetering on the edge of a public health catastrophe. While many rich nations continue to ease public health guidelines as they gradually move in the direction of normalcy, an ultra-contagious Covid-19 mutation known as the Delta variant is spreading like wildfire in countries that have struggled to vaccinate their populations and in communities that have refused to participate in inoculation drives, forcing governments to resort to drastic measures contain the damage. "The new curbs on travel and daily life stretched from Australia and Bangladesh to South Africa and Germany, where authorities over the weekend set new limits on travelers from 'virus-variant zones' such as Portugal and Russia," the Washington Post reported Monday. "South Africa on Sunday extended a nightly curfew and introduced a ban on gatherings, alcohol sales, indoor dining, and some domestic travel for 14 days to halt a worrying surge in cases driven by the Delta variant." First detected in India, the Delta variant is rapidly emerging as the dominant coronavirus strain across the globe. The mutation—which is estimated to be 60% more transmissible than the highly contagious Alpha variant—has now been detected in more than 80 countries, and it accounts for over a third of all new cases in the United States. The Delta strain is the "most contagious variant we've seen so far," said Dr. Ashish Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. "It is wreaking havoc around the world, and will cause problems here," Jha added, referring to the U.S. Ultra-contagious Covid Delta variant is 'wreaking havoc' worldwide - Alternet.org Nope. We are the only province whose government slashed healthcare so badly as to create this crisis.

It is a bit concerning to me that Andrew Harris has been sitting out a year and is not 20 years old any more. I take comfort in that our coach and GM are on the job, but primo Canadian running backs are rare birds.

This would be hilarious if there were not so many armed and angry lunatics ready to kill for Trump and all that he stands for.

They were forced to because it had gotten to the point where the sound of a zipper was stampeding whole herds of sheep.

But do you know why the Scots wear kilts?

Exactly. Immunizations does not absolutely guarantee that you will not get sick from all of the variants, it means that if you do contract it/them, you will not become deathly ill, and will probably not need to be hospitalized. I cannot recall the exact number of where I read it, but I seem to recall that in the USA, there have been fewer than a dozen deaths of people who were double-vaccinated and had passed the two week post-vaccination period. I suspect that any double-dosers who do become quite ill will have underlying health issues like type1 diabetes or other compromised immune system issues.

And, in my experience, there are a lot of dense Scots out there.

That was certainly not a sure thing. The evangelists have been working overtime to proslytize the American military- and particularly the officer corps. If you are career military, you are very comfortable with obeying commands without question and have a need for rigid structure, so you are vulnerable to the message of a would-be despot like Trump and the evangelical movement as well. These people tend to see the world as black and white, us vs "them", not to mention the lingering mental instability of PTSS effects. And a lot of ex-military find their way into para-military organizations like...wait for it....police and fire departments.

The Freep was positively gushing over the Greenies today. Wildly optimistic to the point where the article looked like it was written by the president of the Rider fan club.

If the telcos were smart enough to lay fiber optic cable instead of banking on metal wires that were barely good enough for analog phones, the future is bright for them. BTW, I believe that the Opera browser has VPN built in.

Your spouse would second that, I am sure.

Alarming survey finds American conservatives 'uniquely inclined' toward authoritarianism An alarming new survey conducted by Morning Consult has found that American conservatives are "uniquely inclined" toward authoritarianism compared to conservatives in other English-speaking nations. Morning Consult's poll was based on work done by researcher Bob Altemeyer, who defines right-wing authoritarianism as "the desire to submit to some authority, aggression that is directed against whomever the authority says should be targeted and a desire to have everybody follow the norms and social conventions that the authority says should be followed." Alarming survey finds American conservatives 'uniquely inclined' toward authoritarianism - Alternet.org

How close did Trump come to attempting a military coup? Much too close At the present moment, American democracy is like a tightrope walker attempting a crossing during a howling storm, and without a net. That democracy has thus far "survived" the Age of Trump and his regime's and allies' assaults — including an all-too-real attempted coup — is something like the luck enjoyed by fools and drunks. Joe Biden may now be president, but the perilous tightrope walk continues. Safety appears to be in sight, but that is a dangerous illusion: Most lethal falls during a tightrope walk happen during the last few feet when the performer believes they are safe. The flood of "revelations" about the Trump regime's attempts to overthrow American democracy continue. Contrary to what the professional smart people with their "view from nowhere" and too many other members of the chattering classes have claimed, the dangers of a coup perpetrated by the Trump regime were not exaggerated or hysterical, and most certainly were not symptoms of "Trump derangement syndrome." The danger was clear and obvious for those who were paying attention to reality as it is, and not as others wished it to be. What do we now know? (And should have known already?) Donald Trump and members of his inner circle wanted to invoke the Insurrection Act in response to last summer's protests that followed the police murder of George Floyd. As reported by CNN, Trump longed for the U.S. military to "crack skulls" and "handle" the protesters with great force. He reportedly wanted the United States military to "beat the **** out" of the protesters and even "shoot them." When told that such violence was illegal and inappropriate, Trump then suggested that the military could shoot protesters in the legs instead. It appears that Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper were able to stop Trump from ordering U.S. troops to act out his violent, psychopathic fantasies. ProPublica recently obtained emails revealing that the violence by Trump's followers on Jan. 6 by Trump's followers was predictable and in no sense unexpected. In their new reporting, Joshua Kaplan and Joaquin Sapien explain that they interviewed "more than 50 people involved in the events of Jan. 6" and reviewed months' worth of private correspondence: Taken together, these accounts suggest that senior Trump aides had been warned the Jan. 6 events could turn chaotic, with tens of thousands of people potentially overwhelming ill-prepared law enforcement officials. Rather than trying to halt the march, Trump and his allies accommodated its leaders, according to text messages and interviews with Republican operatives and officials. In other words, nothing about the coup attempt was spontaneous or random. It was part of a much larger plot and conspiracy previewed by Trump's repeated attempts to invoke the Insurrection Act during the George Floyd protests and other moments of his presidency. In addition, many questions remain unanswered about the Trump regime's embedding of its supporters in key national security positions and the military's delayed response to the Capitol attack. Let's not overlook that Trump did in fact want the National Guard deployed on Jan. 6 — to protect his followers as they gathered earlier in the day before marching on the U.S. Capitol. Moreover, in a December 2020 Oval Office meeting with Donald Trump and other members of his inner circle, the disgraced former general and national security adviser Michael Flynn supposedly even went so far as to suggest that Trump should impose martial law in order to remain in power following his defeat by Joe Biden. How close did Trump come to attempting a military coup? Much too close | Salon.com

'We're gonna be in a civil war': Trump supporter warns of more violence if the ex-president isn't reinstated -CNN CNN reporter Donie O'Sullivan traveled to former President Donald Trump's weekend rally in Ohio and spoke to some of his supporters who warned of more violence like that witnessed at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. In a CNN clip posted to his Twitter page, O'Sullivan interviewed one Trump supporter who was convinced the former president would be reinstated by August. He espoused a fictional conspiracy theory holding that the "military" already knows Trump won the 2020 election by "over 80 percent." "He's coming back," the supporter said. "And what if that doesn't happen?" asked O'Sullivan, pointing out that the Constitution doesn't have a mechanism to "reinstate" a defeated president. "We're gonna be in a civil war," the supporter said. "Because the militia will be taking over." Tucker Carlson Claims NSA Is Spying On Him To Cancel His Fox News Show Tucker Carlson alleged Monday that the National Security Agency is spying on him to get his prime time Fox News show canceled. (Watch the clip below.) “Yesterday we heard from a whistleblower within the U.S. government who reached out to warn us that the NSA is monitoring our electronic communications and is planning to leak them in an attempt to take this show off the air,” he said. Carlson, a Fox News star who has pushed revisionist takes on the Capitol insurrection, stoked fears over teaching students about racism and advanced anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, said he had proof of government spying from his source, who knew about a story the show is working on that could have only come from Carlson’s texts and emails. “The Biden administration is spying on us,” Carlson declared. “We have confirmed that.” “Spying on opposition journalists is incompatible with democracy,” he added. “This is scary and we need to stop it right away.” Tucker Carlson Claims NSA Is Spying On Him To Cancel His Fox News Show | HuffPost

'I'm already crazy!’: QAnon pastor goes on delusional rant about sex trafficking in secret DC tunnels Although People for the American Way's Right Wing Watch has announced that it has been indefinitely suspended by YouTube, its Twitter feed is alive and well — and over the weekend, the account tweeted an unhinged sermon by far-right evangelical pastor Greg Locke, who is claiming that secret tunnels used for child sex trafficking can be found underneath the White House and the U.S. Capitol Building. Locke's sermon parrotted the fictional conspiracy theories of the extremist QAnon cult, which believes that the United States' federal government has been infiltrated by an international cabal of child sex traffickers, Satanists and cannibals and that former President Donald Trump was elected in 2016 to fight them. 'I'm already crazy!’: QAnon pastor goes on delusional rant about sex trafficking in secret DC tunnels - Alternet.org

For the Riders, yes.

Well, look at the bright side for the Riders. If their current starting QB gets pulped, he won't be that hard to replace with an equally able one.

Trump Reportedly Shrieked at Gen. Milley: ‘You Can’t F*cking Talk to Me Like That!’ -Reuters/Jim Young Last summer, when former President Donald Trump was attempting to exploit racial justice protests to appease his racist supporters, he reportedly came up with a plan to deal with them—and then erupted in a fit of anger when he was told that it was completely unworkable. Axios got hold of a passage from a new book from The Wall Street Journal’s Michael Bender with the excellent title Frankly, We Did Win This Election. In the book, Bender reports that Trump wanted Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to take charge of a “scorched-earth military campaign” to squash the protests. In the White House’s Situation Room, Milley reportedly told Trump that he legally couldn’t take charge of the strategy, causing Trump to scream: “I said you’re in ******* charge!” Milley then shouted back: “Well, I’m not in charge!” Trump then bellowed: “You can’t ******* talk to me like that!” An exasperated Milley then appealed to others at the meeting: “Goddamnit... There’s a room full of lawyers here. Will someone inform him of my legal responsibilities?” Then-Attorney General Bill Barr reportedly told Trump that Milley was correct. Trump denied the account of the meeting to Axios, commenting: “If Gen. Milley had yelled at me, I would have fired him.”

Trump breaks with reality to accuse McConnell and Bill Barr of conspiring to put Biden in the White House Unwilling to accept he lost the 2020 election more than seven months ago Donald Trump, the former president, on Monday appeared to accuse his own former Attorney General Bill Barr, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) of engaging in fraud and a conspiracy to put Democrat Joe Biden, now the U.S. President, in the White House. "Had Mitch McConnell fought for the Presidency like he should have there would now be Presidential Vetoes on all of the phased Legislation that he has proven to be incapable of stopping," Trump said in a statement. "He never fought for the White House and blew it for the Country. Too bad I backed him in Kentucky, he would have been primaried and lost!" Trump breaks with reality to accuse McConnell and Bill Barr of conspiring to put Biden in the White House - Alternet.org Roger Stone urges Trump to dump "weak-kneed" lawyers in the face of likely indictment Roger Stone, former advisor to President Donald Trump, speaks in front of the Supreme Court on January 05, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images) Roger Stone, former advisor to President Donald Trump, speaks in front of the Supreme Court on January 05, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Veteran Republican operative Roger Stone, with his longtime ally Donald Trump (or at least his company) facing possible criminal indictment in New York, has a message for the former president: Ditch his "weak-kneed" lawyers and hire one tough attorney to fight the potential charges. Stone offered Trump his advice in a Sunday afternoon appearance on far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' "Infowars" program. Speaking about the charges reportedly being drawn up by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. against the Trump Organization — and perhaps the former president himself — Stone urged Trump to "select one attorney" to handle his legal matters. Stone said he thinks Trump "needs to be very wary of this" potential indictment. "If I were him, I would not be confident about the lawyers who handled his impeachment. That fellow Bruce Castor was an embarrassment. So, I think it's vitally important that the president select one attorney who is not Eric Herschmann, who is not [former White House counsel Pat] Cipollone, these two guys who sold him out repeatedly." Roger Stone urges Trump to dump "weak-kneed" lawyers in the face of likely indictment | Salon.com

A couple of points: firstly, Hawley and his ilk don't give a spit about America, let alone Canada. Their remarks are red meat for their dimbulb followers and them, alone. Secondly, there have been reports out of the US, that hundreds of thousands of doses of vaccine have been allowed to staledate themselves out of usefulness, and I suspect that there will be a lot more to come.

SSHHH, DAMMIT! You're gonna ruin it for the rest of us! Realistically, few people will go through the trouble. Over the next few years, you will see the traditional networks begin to fade out of prominence as more and more TV content providers start streaming directly to subscribers.

Agreed. You get more with a kind word and a gun than you do with a kind word.

It was the Canadian equivalent of Seinfeld. Netflix can restrict the airing to US markets only, as they already do with some shows.