Covid interruptus

Healthcare hobby farmer. Truth junkie #empiric

[Mr PitBull Stories @MrPitbull07]

For decades, every orphaned elephant died within a matter of weeks. Then a woman with no scientific training decided that wasn’t good enough.
Daphne Sheldrick received baby elephants at her center in Tsavo National Park, Kenya. They arrived after poachers had killed their mothers. They were only a few weeks old, confused, and still dependent on milk.
The pattern was always the same.
They were fed cow’s milk, the only alternative available. At first, they drank it. Then their bodies began to reject it. Diarrhea, dehydration, weakness. Within days, they died.
That was the case everywhere.
Experts considered it inevitable. Elephant milk had a composition too specific to be replicated. Without the mother, there was no solution.
Daphne had no formal academic training in biology or veterinary medicine. She had learned by working in the field, alongside animals. And she decided not to accept that conclusion.
She began to experiment.
She adjusted the milk formulas. Added cream. Used goat’s milk. Introduced different oils, one at a time. She recorded everything in a notebook. Every attempt was tested on a real calf.
Many died.
And from that point on, her work changed.
Every mistake became data. Every loss became a clue about what did not work. She continued for years. Then for a decade. Then two.
In the meantime, she identified several key factors.
Coconut oil worked better than other fats. Mineral proportions had to be precise. Stress was also a decisive factor: the calves needed constant contact, not just nourishment.
The keepers began sleeping beside them. Caring for them day and night. Partly replacing the presence of the mother.
Results came slowly.
First they survived for a few weeks. Then months. Then years.
In the late 1970s, after the death of her husband, she founded the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. She gathered everything she had learned and turned it into a method.
Feeding, medical care, daily management. Everything was organized into clear protocols.
The calves began to grow.
Some were reintroduced into the wild. Then they integrated into herds. Then they had calves of their own.
What had seemed impossible became achievable.
When Daphne Sheldrick died in 2018, more than 230 orphaned elephants had survived thanks to the system she had developed.
She had no academic titles.
She had started with a problem everyone believed had no solution—and kept working on it for nearly thirty years.

[Dan Mazier @DanMazierMP]

BREAKING NEWS

Canada Health Infoway CEO Michael Green, refused to tell Parliament how much taxpayer money the Liberals paid him to manage PrescribeIT.

Now we know why.

He pocketed over $830,000 last year which included a maximum performance award of over $215,000.

The Liberals gave Infoway $300+ MILLION for PrescribeIT, a program that failed to replace fax machines and is now being quietly shut down.

Performance awards are supposed to reward performance, not failure.

So why was the CEO of this failed Liberal program paid millions of tax dollars in maximum performance awards?

The Health Minister had the authority to audit and evaluate Canada Health Infoway.

She failed miserably.

Canadians deserve answers.

[Tablesalt 🇨🇦🇺🇸 @Tablesalt13]

BOMBSHELL: Retired editor-in-chief of the Calgary Herald blows the whistle on Canadian media

"they are no longer independent. They are dependent on government subsidies"

"the era of independent media is over"

[Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH® @P_McCulloughMD]

Review of Sean Hartman's Autopsy Found COVID-19 Vaccine was Cause of Death

Cardiologist Dr Peter McCullough @P_McCulloughMD reviewed this case and determined this young boy indeed died of fatal vaccine myocarditis.

M. Nathaniel Mead, Jessica Rose, William Makis, Kirk Milhoan, Nicolas Hulscher and Peter A. McCullough. Myocarditis after SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 vaccination: Epidemiology, outcomes, and new perspectives. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CARDIOVASCULAR RESEARCH & INNOVATION. Jan-Mar 2025, VOL. 3, ISSUE 1, pp. 1-43, DOI 10.61577 ijcri.2025.100001 https://t.co/YZVgLy1M6m

[Viva Frei @thevivafrei]

SHOCKER OUT OF CANADA:

I think the clerk working for the government of Canada’s new jab “impact” program may have accidentally let slip more than she intended with respect to the previous company that was governing jab injury claims.

After saying “I can’t say what I found” in her review of the prior program, she proceeds tell Dan Hartman to RE-FILE his claim.

That this time, she says, it’s going to be a “real doctor” who reviews his claim.

A “real doctor”? Who exactly was reviewing claims previously?

Recall, Dan’s son, Sean, passed away 33 days after taking his first Pfizer jab.

He was 17.

Dan filed his claim years ago. It was initially rejected. He filed an appeal three years ago, and has heard nothing since.

Now the program has been taken over by the federal government because of things that this clerk “cannot say” were going on under the prior program administration.

And he is being told to start his application from scratch.

This is absurd and horrendous.

Share and put in blast.

(reposting because for some reason, yesterday this post received a “graphic warning” label, if you can believe)

[Dan Mazier @DanMazierMP]

BREAKING

Conservatives passed a motion to obtain the secret agreement between foreign drugmaker Grifols and Canadian Blood Services.

According to reports, Grifols has been using blood plasma donated by Canadians to sell products overseas.

Health Canada has never even seen the agreement.

Two people just died at Grifols facilities in Manitoba and the Health Minister has still not met with the company.

When Grifols testified at health committee, the company refused to hand over the agreement, so we passed a motion to get it.

There's another layer to this story.

Brookfield Asset Management has made multiple attempts to purchase Grifols over the past two years, including a multi-BILLION dollar bid.

Mark Carney holds significant personal investments in Brookfield.

More to come.

@HelenaKonanz @strauss_matt @BurtonBaileyRD

[Eva Chipiuk, BSc, LLB, LLM @echipiuk]

While preparing for a brief on the independence petition due tomorrow, I came across this from the Supreme Court of Canada that is worth sharing:

“The right of the people to discuss and debate ideas forms the very foundation of democracy… For this reason, the Supreme Court of Canada has assiduously protected the right of each citizen to participate in political debate...

Permitting an effective voice for unpopular and minority views — views political parties may not embrace — is essential to deliberative democracy. The goal should be to bring the views of all citizens into the political arena for consideration, be they accepted or rejected at the end of the day. Free speech in the public square may not be curtailed merely because one might find the message unappetizing or the messenger distasteful…

The ability to engage in effective speech in the public square means nothing if it does not include the ability to attempt to persuade one’s fellow citizens through debate and discussion. This is the kernel from which reasoned political discourse emerges.

Freedom of expression must allow a citizen to give voice to her vision for her community and nation, to advocate change through the art of persuasion in the hope of improving her life and indeed the larger social, political and economic landscape…

Freedom of expression protects not only the individual who speaks the message, but also the recipient. Members of the public — as viewers, listeners and readers — have a right to information on public governance, absent which they cannot cast an informed vote.”

These are words from the Supreme Court of Canada that recognize the importance of debate and discussion, even when the views are unpopular, uncomfortable, or distasteful.

So when someone tries to shut down the conversation, shame you, or tell you certain topics should not even be discussed, remind them of that.

The answer is not silence or suppression.

A petition, a debate, even a controversial idea, these are not failures of the system. They are expressions of it.

The real risk is when we start deciding which views are acceptable to be heard.

Because once that line starts moving, it does not stop where you think it will.

So the question is:

Are we prepared to actually live this principle or do we only support it when we agree with the message?

Because the more you know and understand, the more effectively you can participate, ask better questions, and actually effect change.

[Eva Chipiuk, BSc, LLB, LLM @echipiuk]

🚨The Court of Appeal has dismissed the appeal of Justice Mosley’s decision, confirming once again that invoking the Emergencies Act was unconstitutional.

That is a really big deal and the Court of Appeal was unequivocal:

“We have already found that Cabinet, on the evidence that was before it and on a proper interpretation of the Act, did not have reasonable grounds to believe that a threat to national security existed.”

On the evidence, as many of us said from the beginning, the legal threshold was never met. The federal government knew, or ought to have known, that this appeal was bound to fail. Yet it proceeded anyway, consuming years of time and significant public resources, while hoping the public would simply move on.

And it bears repeating: if anything truly went sideways in Ottawa, the primary failures were local. The City of Ottawa and the Ottawa Police Service grossly mismanaged the protest from the outset, creating conditions that escalated rather, and in doing so played directly into the federal government’s political narrative.

For years, peaceful protesters were disparaged and slandered, portrayed as dangerous and treasonous. Many were beaten, arrested, and jailed.

And we should also be honest about this: what does this say about those who accepted the government’s narrative without question, who repeated claims that have now been judicially rejected, and who looked the other way while fellow citizens were vilified and punished?

Now the responsibility shifts to us.

This confirms, once again, a profound democratic failure: extraordinary powers deployed unlawfully, Charter rights infringed, and citizens met with force instead of dialogue.

Accountability does not end with this judgment. It begins with it.

If governments can misuse emergency powers, disparage their own citizens instead of engaging with them, and then attempt to run out the clock through prolonged litigation, democratic accountability survives only if the public actively enforces it.

Let’s not fall for this trap again. Let’s stop before fear, propaganda, and politics are weaponized to turn Canadians against their neighbours, friends, and families—while those in power evade scrutiny and consequence.

We deserve better. But we must demand better.

[Eva Chipiuk, BSc, LLB, LLM @echipiuk]

Four judges have now confirmed that Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act illegally.

The Federal Court of Appeal has dismissed the government’s appeal of Justice Mosley’s decision, confirming once again that the use of these extraordinary powers was unconstitutional.

The Court was clear:

“Cabinet… did not have reasonable grounds to believe that a threat to national security existed.”

In other words, the legal threshold was never met.

Instead of taking responsibility, Trudeau and his government spent years appealing the decision, using public resources while hoping the issue would fade from public attention.

That behaviour runs directly against the principles of democracy and good governance. In a healthy democracy, leaders are accountable when they misuse extraordinary powers.

When a leader unlawfully invokes emergency powers against his own citizens and then refuses to take responsibility, that is not leadership. It is a failure of judgment and accountability.

And someone who failed so profoundly at home, and then ran from that failure, should not be elevated and invited to lecture the world about democracy on the global stage.

See latest Court decision: https://t.co/aN912jjnqC

[Felix Prehn 🐶 @felixprehn]

Private equity firms bought 500 hospitals. Death rates in their emergency rooms went up 13%. They fired 12% of the staff. Then they paid themselves billions in dividends.

A Harvard study just confirmed what doctors already knew: people are dying so investors can hit quarterly targets.

Exactly what happens. A PE firm buys a hospital using debt. The debt gets placed on the hospital's balance sheet, not the firm's. Now the hospital owes hundreds of millions it never borrowed. To service that debt, the hospital cuts costs. Costs mean nurses.

The numbers from the Harvard/University of Chicago study are horrifying. After PE acquisition, emergency department salary spending dropped 18.2%. ICU salary spending dropped 15.9%. Hospital-wide employees were cut 11.6%. Emergency department deaths rose 13%, seven additional deaths per 10,000 visits.

A separate study found patients undergoing surgery at PE-acquired hospitals had 17% higher odds of dying within 90 days.

Steward Health Care, owned by Cerberus Capital, filed bankruptcy with $9 billion in debt after closing hospitals across Massachusetts. The CEO lived on a $40 million yacht while emergency rooms went dark. Eight hospitals serving 2 million people nearly disappeared because a PE fund extracted more cash than the system could survive.

The private equity industry has poured over $1 trillion into healthcare. They operate a quarter of ERs nationwide. This isn't going away.

The investing angle nobody talks about.

Non-PE hospital operators like HCA Healthcare (HCA) and Tenet (THC) are the direct beneficiaries. Every time a PE hospital closes or deteriorates, patients flow to the nearest competitor. HCA has returned 1,200% since 2011. Patient volume from PE closures is a structural tailwind nobody's pricing in.

Medical staffing firms (AMN Healthcare, Cross Country) charge premium rates specifically because PE hospitals cut staff. The staffing shortage IS the business model for these companies.

The disruption play: outpatient surgical centers (SCA Health, now part of UnitedHealth) are pulling profitable procedures out of hospitals entirely. PE-owned hospitals lose their highest-margin surgeries to outpatient, and the death spiral accelerates.

Pull up tradevision and monitor healthcare M&A alerts, hospital closure filings, and patient volume migration data. When a PE-owned hospital announces "restructuring," the patient volume shift to competitors like HCA starts within 30 days. That 30-day window is when the competitor's earnings revisions haven't updated yet. Free to try.

(a private equity firm bought your local hospital. borrowed $500 million in the hospital's name. fired 12% of the nurses. emergency room deaths rose 13%. then they paid themselves dividends. nobody went to prison. they're currently buying another hospital.)

[Tuki @TukiFromKL]

🚨 Do you understand what's happening at Amazon right now?

Their own AI coding agent Kiro reportedly "decided" the fastest way to fix a config error was to delete the entire production environment. Gone. A 6-hour outage. 6.3 million orders lost.

Amazon's SVP called thousands of engineers into a mandatory meeting this week. Not to discuss strategy. To discuss damage control.

Now here's my prediction and I want you to screenshot this:

Amazon won't just ban AI-assisted code. They'll make every engineer personally liable for AI-generated code they approve. Other Big Tech will follow within 6 months.

Think about what that means.

The same companies that fired thousands of engineers to "restructure around AI" are about to tell the remaining ones.. you're now legally responsible for code you didn't write, can't fully understand, and were told to ship faster.

Atlassian fired 1,600 people this morning to go all-in on AI. Replit is hiring kids who vibe code. And Amazon, the company that BUILT one of these AI coding agents just watched it nuke production.

The vibe coding era isn't ending. But the "move fast and let AI break things" era is about to hit a wall. And that wall is called liability.

Companies wanted AI to replace engineers. Now they need engineers to babysit AI. And they already fired the babysitters.

[Regan @ReganCanadian]

Brilliant!

[James Melville 🚜 @JamesMelville]

This is an absolutely brilliant gesture from Novak Djokovic. And it’s not just a one off. He is consistently doing this sort of thing to spread joy into the lives of others. A great champion on and off the court.

[Covid interruptus @empiricho]

@DrJStrategy @DonaldWelsh16 Exactly. Try explaining that to your Cdn friend. They'll tell you another reason trump is nuts

[GW, MD @porterguy1]

Run-Death-Is-Near …….Fauci’s Orphan drug needing a place to go. NIH has a co-patent with Gilead and stood to lose multi-millions after it failed the Ebola trials in October 2019 (after already failing to treat other diseases). Fauci saw Covid as an opportunity to use the drug and “reap the rewards”, even though its mechanism of action prevents the drug from having ANY benefit to the 7+ day sick-with-Covid patient who was in a cytokine storm when coming to the hospital. Pure, unadulterated evil…..

[Covid interruptus @empiricho]

@NoFarmsNoFoods https://t.co/7D3M2RUsnU

[No Farmers, No Food @NoFarmsNoFoods]

Italy 🇮🇹

[Covid interruptus @empiricho]

@NoFarmsNoFoods https://t.co/7D3M2RUsnU

[No Farmers, No Food @NoFarmsNoFoods]

Italy 🇮🇹

[No Farmers, No Food @NoFarmsNoFoods]

Italy 🇮🇹

[Covid interruptus @empiricho]

@JamesMelville I guess we can all look forward to a tax on the ground water for the patch of dirt we might "own"

[James Melville 🚜 @JamesMelville]

A recent report from the UK’s Government Digital Sustainability Alliance predicts that AI will increase global water usage from 1.1 billion cubic metres to 6.6 billion cubic metres by 2027. This is a staggering increase and poses a real risk to water security.