Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Mid-Week Post

Four more shopping days until Saint Patrick's Day ...  🍀


[Commentary redacted]:

Section 13 was drafted and passed in 1977. It reached the Supreme Court in 1990 as part of a trio of cases about Canada’s uniquely balanced approach to hate crimes. The ruling against neo-Nazi hotline operator John Ross Taylor, upholding Section 13, defined hate as “unusually strong and deep-felt emotions of detestation, calumny and vilification,” the same language, with one minor tweak to delete “calumny,” that appears today in the Liberal legislation. It was a split decision, though, and in her dissent, former Justice Beverley McLachlin (who was not yet the chief justice) said the idea of hate is “vague and subjective, capable of extension should the interpreter be so inclined.” As she put it, “Where does dislike leave off and hatred or contempt begin?”

In 1998, a penalty section was added to Section 13 that allowed fines of up to $10,000, which would later become a major legal problem for the law’s constitutionality. But it was the expansion to the internet in 2001 that caused the greatest headaches. New worries began to emerge.

One of the oddest things about Section 13 was that the hate speech did not require a specific victim. It was enough that published material was “likely to expose” a protected group to “hatred or contempt,” for example on the basis of their race, religion or gender. It didn’t have to actually do this, just make it likely. ...

Richard Warman worked for the Canadian Human Rights Commission from 2002 to 2004. He had been filing complaints beforehand, but after he left he started bringing online hate speech cases to the tribunal on more of a freelance basis, sometimes supporting the CHRC prosecution. On paper, it was all him. He brought 16 cases and won them all, getting fines and cease and desist orders against offenders, in some cases through settlements, but mostly by winning at tribunals. The CHRC could bring cases itself, but in practice never did.

Warman’s methods were unorthodox and unsupervised. As part of his efforts to document his targets and confirm their identities, he would sometimes pose as an extremist in online forums. He would go so far that a 2009 tribunal ruling, which he nevertheless won, criticized him for “disappointing and disturbing” online behaviour, including posting hate messages written by others that “could have precipitated further hate messages.” ...

He compared his method to “triage,” going after the worst offenders and working his way down, but starting with clear cut calls for genocide or ethnic cleansing. “I never ran out of bright-red targets to address, so I never had to question myself, as to saying whether, well, this is getting a little grey, it’s a little weak, maybe this is something that doesn’t merit a human rights complaint. It was always situations where there was a crystal-clear violation of the law,” Warman said in the interview in 2012.

Warman filed the fateful case against Lemire in 2003, but no one paid it much attention until the Mark Steyn affair.

That was when the writer published an excerpt of his book America Alone in Maclean’s magazine, with provocative claims about the demographic rise of Muslims, titled “The Future Belongs To Islam.” Soon after, Mohamed Elmasry, a computer engineering professor at the University of Waterloo, met with a small group of York University law students in the Al Madina restaurant in Waterloo, and decided upon a legal response on behalf of Canada’s Muslims.

Having been refused equal space for a rebuttal in Maclean’s, they filed human rights hate speech complaints in three jurisdictions: Ontario and British Columbia, where provincial human rights law applies to printed material; and federally, which applies to online material. ...

They all eventually failed, and only B.C. actually heard the case on its merits at a tribunal, where the complaint was dismissed. But they drew attention to human rights law and commissions in a totally unprecedented manner.

Not long previously, a Calgary imam, Syed Soharwardy, brought a complaint under Alberta human rights law against Ezra Levant and his Western Standard magazine for publishing the Danish Muhammad cartoons, a set of satirical depictions of the prophet that were not published in any other mainstream Canadian outlet, and were the spark to a global outrage.

In response, Levant became the ringleader of a campaign to, as he put it, “denormalize” not just Section 13, but human rights law and quasi-judicial human rights tribunals in general. He recorded and broadcast his meeting with an officer of the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission, and developed online protest strategies he would later use for other political causes.

Seeing this national debate over free speech rise so quickly, Soharwardy had a change of heart and dropped out of the complaint, saying he had only wanted dialogue, not punishment. But another Muslim organization saw it through to a decision, which found the publication did not violate any human rights hate laws. ...

Next year came the bombshell. Finally, there was a decision in Warman v. Lemire, but not just that, a legal indictment of the system from inside. Tribunal chair Athanasios Hadjis ruled that Section 13 violates the Charter right to free expression because it carries the threat of punitive fines. He found Lemire had violated it in one instance, but had removed the offending material as soon as he learned of Warman’s complaint against him, so Hadjis declined to issue a penalty in light of his wider decision.

This looked like the end. Other Section 13 cases were thrown into a strange limbo. How could they be prosecuted if the tribunal chair himself thinks the law is invalid? It would be appealed, of course, and everyone would intervene, and eventually the Supreme Court would side with either Warman or Lemire. Or so it seemed.

By the time Warman v. Lemire got to Federal Court, where tribunal decisions are appealed, the ruling Conservatives had a majority in Parliament and had signalled their support for Section 13 was over, and that they would now seek to repeal it as an affront to free speech. That vote went through in 2012, but the saga was far from over. The decision in Whatcott had yet to land.

 

Read the whole thing. 

**

If Canadians don't believe in this bill, then they need to get off of their @$$es and protest because this censorship bill isn't going anywhere:

Fewer than half of Canadians believe the federal government’s plan to regulate social media sites will make platforms safer, a new survey suggests.

Polling firm Leger recently asked Canadians about the Liberal government’s proposed Online Harms Act, which contains a suite of measures meant to make social media platforms safer, particularly for children.

Half of respondents said they are wary of the government’s ability to protect free speech, and a majority said they support the controversial proposal to introduce stiffer sentences for hate speech crimes.

Introduced by Justice Minister Arif Virani, the proposed legislation would create a new digital safety commission to regulate social media companies and establish an ombudsperson to hear complaints from Canadians. The law would also require companies to create safety plans to mitigate exposure to harmful content.


No one should be regulating anything.

It is not up to the government to tackle the digital monster that is the Internet, nor could it.

If the Liberals were serious about preventing harm to children, they would increase penalties for perpetrators of sexual abuse against children and women and certainly wouldn't allow life-damaging mutilations of children to occur.

But this is not about harm prevention and everyone knows it.


Also - part of the problem right here:

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in a recent sexual assault case that it was “problematic” for a lower court judge to refer to the alleged victim as a “woman,” implying that the more appropriate term should have been “person with a vagina.”

In a decision published Friday, Justice Sheilah Martin wrote that a trial judge’s use of the word “a woman” may “have been unfortunate and engendered confusion.”

Martin does not specify why the word “woman” is confusing, but the next passage in her decision refers to the complainant as a “person with a vagina.” Notably, not one person in the entire case is identified as transgender, and the complainant is referred to throughout as a “she.”

The case was R. v. Kruk, which involved a 2017 charge of sexual assault against then 34-year-old Maple Ridge, B.C., man Charles Kruk.

“Mr. Kruk found the complainant intoxicated, lost, and distressed one night in downtown Vancouver,” reads the background to the case. “He decided to take her to his house, and connected with the complainant’s parents by phone.”

It’s then that the accounts diverge. The complainant testified that she woke up to find that her pants were off, and Kruk was vaginally penetrating her. Kruk testified that the complainant’s pants were off because she’d removed them herself after spilling water on them earlier in the night – and that what she assumed was a rape was actually just Kruk startling her awake.


Does anyone believe that an unelected and unaccountable judge who can't tell what a woman is or what assault is can protect the vulnerable?



No one could have predicted that violent criminal with multiple convictions for violence could have ever stabbed people.

That came out of nowhere:

A government review has found there were no warning signs that could have predicted Myles Sanderson’s violent rampage that left 11 people dead, despite his previous arrests for violent crime and a history of not following release conditions.

Sanderson stabbed 11 people to death and injured another 18 on the James Smith Cree Nation reserve and in nearby Weldon, Sask., in September 2022. He had been serving a four-year sentence prior to the killings, but was released at the two-thirds mark of his sentence under what is called statutory release.

The Parole Board of Canada and Correctional Services Canada convened a joint board of investigation to look at their involvement with Sanderson and whether there were mistakes made in releasing him. Prior to releasing the report publicly Tuesday, the agencies provided it to families of survivors in both communities.

The board found nothing in his history indicating Sanderson, 32, would launch such a deadly rampage, beginning with killing his own brother.

“There were no pre-incident indicators or precipitating events known to Correctional Service Canada staff that would have suggested Sanderson would act out in the violent and destructive fashion that he did on September 4, 2022,” the report reads. “There was, however, significant information that Sanderson was at risk for both general acts of violence and acts of domestic violence, particularly if he was misusing substances.

(Sidebar: wait for it.)

Sanderson had a lengthy criminal record that included 46 convictions between 2008 and 2017. Most of the crimes were minor in nature, but there were more violent ones such as armed robbery, assaulting a police officer and assault with a weapon.

 

Also:

 

 

ArriveCan is the new Ad-Scam/SNC-Lavalin/Aga Khan/India ... :

The Department of Public Works in a briefing note claims ArriveCan charges were “fair and reasonable” despite irregularities and multi-million dollar cost overruns. Anita Anand, the public works minister at the time of ArriveCan spending, earlier told reporters she was not to blame: “Did you know about any of this?”


Wow ... :

Canada’s auditor general recently fired and called in police to investigate two employees who had been privately earning money from government contracts they had not declared.

In a statement to National Post this week, the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) said it is still investigating a third employee that it also discovered had contracts with another arm of the federal government the employee had not disclosed to their employer.

The firings, which occurred between September and December last year, come to light as questions swirl about how a federal public servant’s company was able to obtain a nearly $8-million contract to work on the ArriveCan app.

It also indicates that no federal organization — including the biggest watchdog of government contracting who recently published a scathing report on ArriveCan — is immune from employees breaking the code of conduct, and potentially the law, by failing to report all secondary employment, particularly government contracts.

Ian Stedman, a York University assistant professor specializing in ethics in government, said it’s time for the government to start being more proactive in checking if public servants are respecting their employment codes, instead of relying on attestations signed by each bureaucrat.

For example, he said each department and agency could have a team whose job is to randomly pick certain public servants to be “audited,” which could include a review of their expense reports and verifying that they don’t have undeclared secondary sources of income.



Put these sites in gated white liberal communities

Let them live with the consequences of their political leanings:

Drug users using miniature torches to light up in common areas. Graffitied walls bearing the scars of repeated damage. Men and women slumped in unnatural positions, surrounded by scattered food.

This was the scene captured inside a low-barrier East Vancouver shelter in a video published Sunday on the social media site X by U.S. activist Kevin Dahlgren. A former outreach worker based in Portland, Oregon, Dahlgren now advocates for the notion that existing approaches to homelessness primarily create dependency and serve to exacerbate the problem.

Dahlgren explained his philosophy in a column published by the New York Post: “We are loving the homeless to death … we will end this humanitarian crisis not with big budgets or unrealistic utopian fantasies but by empowering people to reach their fullest potential.”

Dahlgren’s social media channels are ordinarily filled with video interviews of Oregon homeless — many of them decrying a system that supplies food, tents and other materials to live on the streets, but offers few options to get clean.

Just last week, he featured a woman living in a trailer inside a tent encampment who told him that regular handouts of “supplies to make this sort of lifestyle possible … make it way too easy for people to become complacent and just keep doing this.”

But despite more than 20 years of moving among the tent encampments and skid rows of the U.S. West Coast, he reported that the Downtown Eastside was “the most chaotic street I have ever been on.”

“It felt like I was walking in hell,” he said in a statement to National Post.

In a caption accompanying the video – which has now garnered nearly two million views – he wrote “staff were nowhere. It was horrifying.”

“Easily the best example why the decriminalizing of drugs and poorly regulated safe injections sites is a bad idea,” he added.

 

 

Who could have seen this coming?:

The insolvent Saltwire Network newspaper chain, largest in Atlantic Canada, pocketed taxpayer subsidies while failing to pay its taxes, court records show. The CEO earlier testified the chain was “vital to our democracy.”

 

Newfoundland can be bought:

Pierre Poilievre's Conservatives are launching a full-court political press against the Trudeau Liberals' April 1 carbon price increase — and there's already a Liberal premier signing on. 

Newfoundland and Labrador's Andrew Furey — an ally of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — added his voice Tuesday to Poilievre's demand the Liberals pause the planned increase, a request also made in the last week by Ontario's Doug Ford, P.E.I.'s Dennis King and New Brunswick's Blaine Higgs, all conservatives.
They all argue going ahead with the scheduled increase to the levy asks too much of Canadians already feeling the pinch from higher living costs.

 

Oh, good!

Now do halal food!:

In a statement of claim filed earlier this week in Federal Court, the applicants seek to strike down new Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) rules requiring that non-stunned animals be subjected to cognitive tests to ensure they’re irreversibly unconscious before being processed. 
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But Jewish groups say the new rules, introduced last summer, “unjustifiably infringe” the rights of Canadian Jews to practice their faith as guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and its guarantee of right to equal treatment of different faiths.
They say the effect of the rules will eventually end kosher slaughter in Canada because the CFIA has drastically slowed down production in kosher slaughter, a method that is already humane. Some slaughterhouses in Canada have already stopped producing kosher meat because it has become uneconomical under the CFIA’s new requirements.
“As you can appreciate in a commercial setting, they need to progress from animal to animal in a relatively expeditious manner,” said the Kashruth Council of Canada’s (COR) Richard Rabkin, one of the organizations involved in the lawsuit. 
“All these tests they now they require, like the corneal reflex tests and others, it just slows down the process.”
In typical non-kosher abattoirs, cattle are usually rendered unconscious via a powerful blow to the head from a bolt gun, then are hung up and have their necks slit, and are drained of blood until dead. 
In kosher slaughter, or shechita, animals are killed by trained shochetim who use smooth, razor-sharp knives to sever the animal’s throat in a single, uninterrupted motion before letting the animal bleed out. It is commonly believed that the method is painless and at least as humane as the stunning technique, although Jews believe it is the more humane method because the animal is rendered almost immediately unconscious. 
“It is applicants’ position that with shechita the massive bleeding and rapid drop in arterial pressure caused by the complete severing of the trachea, oesophagus, carotid arteries and jugular veins leads to near instantaneous unconsciousness,” the plaintiffs argue in the statement of claim.
Rabbi Saul Emanuel, director of the MK Kosher Certification Agency, which is also a plaintiff in the suit, said that stunning animals violates Jewish dietary laws, as they need to be alive, healthy and alert before being slaughtered.  
While the CFIA permits licensed abattoirs to slaughter non-stunned animals, the new rules require processors to subject each animal to cognitive tests, particularly by tests on their eyes or checks for arhythmic breathing, before being hung and drained.

 First of all, the Charter is not the Word of God or the Magna Carta or the American Constitution.
It is a rag written by a communist that benefits big government.
So there's that.
Secondly, this is government over-reach that is typically one-sided. 
If the Liberals had their way, there would be no kosher food in Canada at all.



No, Biden is not senile.

He is just whimsical and charming and decidedly forgets where he is all the time:

Special counsel Robert Hur testified on Tuesday that the White House attempted to pressure him into changing aspects of his report on President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents.

The revelation came during Hur’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, in which Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Wis., probed the special counsel head about a Feb. 5 letter the White House Counsel sent to Hur days before his report became public. When Tiffany asked whether the White House requested he “change [the report’s] references to the president’s poor memory,” Hur confirmed the administration did, in fact, make such a request.

“There was a request, yes,” Hur said, contradicting claims issued earlier in the hearing by Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., who asserted Biden did not “seek to redact a single word of Mr. Hur’s report.”

Hur confirmed this during a prior exchange with committee chair and Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.

“Did the White House try to weigh in with your investigation on elements of that report and frankly try to get that report changed,” Jordan asked, to which Hur replied, “They did request certain edits and changes to the draft report.”

 

At this point, everyone has seen Biden and his baffling behaviour. 

One must ask why the Democrats persist with this fantasy that no one has guessed that he is senile.

If your dark horse is set for the glue factory, you probably shouldn't have bet on him in the first place.

Then there is the matter of classified documents:

Trump and his classified document charges were brought up repeatedly throughout the briefing by both parties, with Republicans using the situation to point out an alleged double standard while Democrats emphasized differences between the two cases.


Imagine sensitive documents getting into the wrong hands.



Someone owes Trump an apology:

Ariel Henry was a brilliant neurosurgeon and a man the United States, at least, was convinced would be a safe pair of hands to manage the chaos in Haiti after the shocking 2021 assassination of President Moise, shot several times at his residence allegedly by Colombian commandos.

But Henry, Haiti’s urbane, somewhat aloof 74-year-old prime minister, has — like almost all his predecessors — completely failed to improve the plight of the Caribbean nation’s 11.5 million people. Instead, he has overseen Haiti’s latest descent into anarchy.

Henry announced he would step down via video link during an emergency summit in Jamaica on Monday after mounting pressure from all sides: street gangs, the population, regional leaders and, crucially, the US State Department. …

In office, Henry promised to focus on improving the calamitous state of security in Haiti, which had been so vividly exposed by the assassination of Moise.

He has totally failed in that mission. Last year, more than 8,400 people were reported killed, injured or kidnapped, more than double the number reported in 2022. Half the population survives on international aid. Some 15,000 have been made homeless by the recent violence.

Gangs, who have been an ever-present reality in Haiti for decades, have begun to extend their power over a weakening state at a level not seen before.

Last week, nearly 30 police stations came under direct attack and many were destroyed. Thousands of prisoners escaped from the country’s two main prisons after they were stormed by heavily armed men in a co-ordinated attack.

Two formerly competing alliances of criminal groups, one led by the notorious former elite police officer Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, have begun to work together against their common enemy: the state.

Cherizier — who has said his nickname derives from when his mother ran a chicken shop, rather than for a penchant for burning his enemies to death as his foes claim — has threatened to pursue hotel owners who hide politicians or collaborate with Henry.

 

 

China - 

(Sidebar: this China.)

- is demanding that Japan compensate for releasing Fukushima water into the sea:

China has demanded Japan set up a compensation system for potential economic damage stemming from the release of treated radioactive wastewater from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea, diplomatic sources have said.

Japan has refused the demand, noting that the International Atomic Energy Agency has concluded that the water discharge is safe, but China is unlikely to retract it, the sources, who are familiar with bilateral relations, said Tuesday.

Senior Chinese officials presented the demand to Japan several times last year through diplomatic channels, the sources said. Beijing has imposed an import ban on all seafood products from its neighbor since the start of the water release in August 2023.

The two Asian countries have been at loggerheads over China's blanket import ban. Japan has urged China to lift the trade restriction soon, but Beijing has accused Tokyo of discharging "nuclear-contaminated water."

In July 2023 the IAEA submitted a report to Japan concluding that the Fukushima water release aligns with global safety standards and that the discharge would have a "negligible radiological impact on people and the environment."

China, however, has put emphasis on establishing a compensation framework as one of its "three major mechanisms" to deal with the water release issue, along with building its own monitoring system and engaging in dialogue with Japan, the sources said.

With regard to how to monitor the maritime environment, China has called for an "independent and effective long-term international monitoring arrangement," while Tokyo says it should be carried out through the IAEA.

One of the sources said China may have proposed the creation of the compensation system with the intention of gaining leverage in negotiations with Japan on the water discharge issue.



Tuesday, March 12, 2024

The State of Education In Canada

A few stories to discuss ...

 

Does class size matter?

In my experience, the younger the student, the smaller the class size should be. This is due to the age and inexperience of the students and what it takes to familiarise them with basic tasks, knowledge and protocols. As the students progress in age, ability and level, class sizes can be increased with a head teacher handling the lessons and teacher's aides offering support:

Amid calls from teachers and unions that represent them for more reasonable class sizes across Canada, a new study is suggesting “smaller class sizes” may not give students a boost after all.

The study found minimizing the number of students in classrooms did not lead to better grades, and suggests it may even decrease their odds at achieving the best results. The study looked at data from Macau, China and Japan, of  2,700 “disadvantaged” secondary school students with class sizes of 15 or fewer pupils to more than 50.

(Sidebar: one also has to keep in mind how different countries see and handle education on the whole. In countries where education is handled more seriously, it's more than likely that class size will be mostly irrelevant to educational outcomes. It also matters how much effort students, parents and teachers put into their work.)

It notes the quantity of teachers didn’t increase the odds for students from what they deemed the poorest backgrounds. Instead, students showing resilience and improvement was linked to the “quality” of teachers, which the study’s authors defined as those with high discipline standards and who use their expertise to improve learning.

The study also notes the negative impact misbehaviour can have in general on students.

While the study suggests small class sizes aren’t a benefit, educators say what’s needed to circumvent the issue of big classes is more supports for those teaching, so that assistance can be passed on to benefit students.

Simon Fraser University biological science senior lecturer Megan Barker, whose expertise includes teaching in large classrooms and active learning, told Global News she has taught classes as big as 500. Regardless of class size, she says having the targeted support in place for students is “crucial.”

 

Hence the need for teacher's aides and tutoring programs. 

 

 

Why even try in school where everyone can get a participation pin?:

A proposed change to the graduation ceremony policy of the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB) would see the board switch to equity-based commencement ceremonies and allow for students without passing grades to participate.

Under the proposed changes(opens in a new tab) to Policy P.038.SCO Graduation and Commencement Ceremonies and Awards, the board would be changing the policy's language to phase out graduation ceremonies in favour of commencement ceremonies.

"The main difference between a commencement ceremony and a graduation ceremony is that a commencement ceremony is more inclusive," the OCDSB in a statement(opens in a new tab) on its website. "This aligns with the Board's larger commitments to equity, inclusion, and diversity."

 

There it is!

Let's tell everyone that they can't succeed and phase out the recognition of success!

Well done, schools!

Furthermore, coddling the weaker students will ultimately not prepare them for future challenges but will make them bitter at not having the skills that the market-place needs.

 

 

Are the taxes too high? Are the jobs too scarce? Is funding these badly-managed programs affecting one's ability to look after one's self and one's family? Are people simply too lazy to make toast of a morning?:

YOU decide

Half of a tangerine instead of a whole one, half of a hard-boiled egg or an apple cut six ways student nutrition programs across Ontario are finding ways to stretch increasingly insufficient dollars.
The province needs to double funding for such initiatives, and even that may not meet the rising demand those programs are seeing, student nutrition programs and advocates told the government ahead of the spring budget.
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“Soaring food inflation has played havoc on student nutrition across the province as the funding is too little to purchase a variety of foods in the amount and portion size required to feed a student,” Viviane Degagne, manager of the Student Nutrition Ontario network, told a pre-budget committee.
“Add to this the increased participation of students in our programs due to the effects of COVID, soaring inflation for families and the number of new immigrants across our province, and we now have a perfect storm,” she said.
 
(Sidebar: are the lockdowns STILL being blamed for the lack of toast?)



Being A Liberal Means Never Having to Be Held to Account

Case in point:

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault yesterday skipped a summons for questioning by the Commons transport committee despite two weeks’ notice. MPs had sought to cross-examine Guilbeault over his remarks that Canada had enough roads and didn’t need more: “He is now refusing to answer questions.”  


Um, make him.




Some People Are "Special"

Since when was infantilisation and fraud a way forward?:

The Department of Indigenous Services is attempting to verify contractors who identify as First Nations, Inuit or Métis. It follows the suspension of a federal employee who claimed to be a descendent of an Ojibway chief in applying for millions in contracts: “I myself have picked up the phone to speak to the RCMP.”

** 

Uncorroborated childhood memories cannot be reported as fact, says the CBC’s Ombudsman. The advisory followed complaints a Manitoba town was unfairly depicted as cruel and bigoted in a Truth and Reconciliation Day story: “Our article could have been clearer about the extent to which we were relying on the perceptions of children 45 years later.”

 

But the damage is done.

 

 

It Was Never About A Virus

 The jab that was meant to cure things but then lessen things and then did nothing:

Researchers allege that biases and manipulation of Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccine clinical data have exaggerated vaccine efficacy and underestimated vaccine adverse events.
While most clinical trials would evaluate the effects of a drug from the day it is administered, these COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are not being evaluated from the first day the vaccines are given. A later date is chosen, which inflates the vaccine’s perceived efficacy and safety, researchers say.
It could make an ineffective vaccine—a COVID vaccine with zero efficacy—have a perceived vaccine effectiveness of up to 48 percent, said researcher Raphael Lataster on Feb. 26, citing a paper co-authored by professor Peter Doshi from the University of Maryland.

The Eco-Piety That Gets One Nowhere

Indeed:

Tests to find out the range of electric cars are flawed andgive a misleading indication of battery life, motorists have been warned.

Steve Huntingford, the editor of What Car? magazine, said official laboratory tests have “inadequacies” and need overhauling so that drivers have “realistic information and won’t be left disappointed” after buying an electric vehicle (EV).

In real-world winter conditions, EV ranges have been found to fall by more than a third compared with official test results.

Car manufacturers are legally required to lab-test the range of new electric cars under the worldwide harmonised light vehicle test procedure (WLTP). It measures battery life travelling at an average speed of 28.8 mph in 23C summer temperatures from 100 per cent charge to zero.

“When they test the cars it’s quite warm, which is good for the battery,” Huntingford said. “At the same time, it’s also quite a weak test that doesn’t ask that much of the car. They don’t drive at a particularly high speed and they accelerate very slowly. It’s the kind of acceleration that would get you in trouble if you drove that way on the road.”

Huntingford and his team now regularly test the most popular EVs in a real-world driving environment during both summer and winter. They have found there is, on average, an 18 per cent difference in battery life between summer and winter, with charge draining faster in colder temperatures.

“What it highlights is the inadequacies of the official test,” Huntingford said. “Manufacturers are not conning people — they have no choice but to use those figures. It just shows how poor the test is and how unreflective it is of real-world conditions.”

 

These vehicles are meant to be the answer to fuel-driven vehicles. the praises of which one cannot sing: