An Interesting Study

[Beebs52]

certainly all of them over the past 8 years or so

Jaybee, I would say over the last 15 or so. Great observations and true. We do love the banter...

[silverscreenselect]

In related news, there is a nationwide convoy, as we speak, of truckers, supported by a good percentage of the general public, going on in Canada. It is a protest against their government's vaccine and mask mandates. It is getting very little coverage in the media from which most of you apparently get all your information. But it is actually happening, and it shows that a great many people agree with the conclusions of this study, peer-reviewed or not. Whether the study is true or not, a lot of people think it is. I guess they are to be ignored for the public good.

Well, Flock you got your wish. We've got some mainstream coverage of the truck convoy protests. And like most of your other claims, the convoy seems to be both less and worse than you claim. From CNN:

Fact check: Debunking false claims about the Canadian convoy protests

The protests involve a minority of Canada's truck drivers, some far-right activists and a variety of other citizens. The demonstrations began in late January as a "Freedom Convoy" of trucks and other vehicles. The convoy then turned into an ongoing demonstration in the Canadian capital of Ottawa, whose mayor declared a state of emergency on Sunday. It has also sparked protests elsewhere and inspired plans for a similar convoy in the US

The convoy started after Canada began requiring truckers who cross the US border to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 or have two-week quarantines upon returning home. The Canadian Trucking Alliance, the primary advocacy group for Canadian truckers, has opposed the protests and has said that more than 85% of Canadian truckers who regularly cross the border were fully vaccinated as of late January.

Organizers claimed in late January that the convoy had grown to tens of thousands of trucks -- even that the number was around 50,000. Others repeated this "50,000" figure. Even larger figures, like "80,000" or "over 130,000" trucks, swirled on social media.

Facts First: The number of trucks involved in the protest was never anywhere close to 50,000; such a number of trucks would have taken up hundreds of miles more road space than this protest occupied. Canadian journalists put the number of trucks in the hundreds in late January. Police in Kingston, Ontario, a city through which a portion of the protest convoy passed, tweeted on January 28 that they had counted 17 full tractor-trailers, 104 tractors without trailers, 424 passenger vehicles and 6 RVs. The same day, Global News chief political correspondent David Akin tweeted that police sources had told him there were "230 tractors / tractor-trailers & 725 personal vehicles from Toronto and Western Canada," plus 200 vehicles from the eastern provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia (he added that there were an "unknown" number of others involved).

Facts First: One video that has been shared on various social media platforms was captioned to claim that it showed South Carolina truckers heading to Ottawa to join the convoy -- but it actually showed an August 2021 truck parade in support of the Special Olympics, USA Today reported. A video of honking Brazilian truckers that circulated on Facebook was from a May 2021 demonstration in support of President Jair Bolsonaro, not a demonstration in solidarity with the Canadian truckers as some captions claimed, USA Today also reported. A photo of a massive protest crowd, shared in Twitter posts in both English and Spanish as if it were from Ottawa this year, actually depicted a 1991 demonstration in Moscow against the Communist government of the Soviet Union, Reuters reported.

Facts First: [Claims of massive police resignations in support of the protest] were entirely false. Ottawa police spokesperson Constable Amy Gagnon said in Monday emails to CNN that "there have been no resignations in relation to the Demonstration" and "all available officers are working." And the Canadian Armed Forces have not made any vow of "allegiance" in relation to the protests nor issued any dramatic statements of any kind about this issue. "In short, no, we have not made any such comment," a military spokesperson said in a Monday email to CNN.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/09/politics ... index.html

Snopes also confirms that many of the photos and videos supposedly showing massive numbers of trucks in support of the convoy have been mislabeled.

https://www.snopes.com/articles/392281/ ... aggerated/

On the other hand, even a relatively small number of very large trucks can cause disruption in crowded urban settings or at border crossings. It's especially difficult if trucks parked together at odd angles have to be towed away. Some 70 trucks are currently barricading the bridge between Windsor, ON, to Detroit, which is causing US auto manufacturers to rework their schedules because they are running out of some parts.

I realize this is a different country, but if you go back to the summer of 2020, the usual Bored Suspects were howling about all the BLM and antifa protestors were turning downtown areas into combat zones. I don't seem to recall any large barricades in place during those protests.

[silverscreenselect]

In related news, there is a nationwide convoy, as we speak, of truckers, supported by a good percentage of the general public, going on in Canada.

I guess it depends on what your definition of "good percentage" is.

A significant majority of residents in Ottawa are opposed to the "Freedom Convoy" protest against public health measures, according to the results of a new poll, and nearly nine out of ten say it's time to go home. The poll, conducted and paid for by Ottawa-based polling firm Abacus Data and obtained by CTV News, found two-thirds of respondents are opposed to the convoy and 22 per cent support it. Opposition to the protest remained strong regardless of political stripe, though Conservative supporters were more likely to support the convoy (25 per cent) than Liberal (12 per cent) or NDP (16 per cent) supporters were. Sixty-eight per cent of residents in central Ottawa oppose the demonstration, as do 61 per cent in the west and 73 per cent in the east and south. Almost nine-in-10 residents said it's time for protesters to leave. The poll found 87 per cent of respondents said yes to the question, "Do you think protesters have had an opportunity to make their point and should leave town?"

"A clear majority of Ottawa residents oppose the Freedom Convoy and their demonstrations in the city. In fact, those who strongly oppose the protest at almost four times as large as those who strongly support it," Abacus Data said.

One of the principal demands of the protesters is to remove all public health mandates related to COVID-19, including vaccination requirements for employment or access to businesses and other spaces, as well as the requirement to wear masks indoors in businesses and public buildings. However, respondents to the Abacus Data poll were largely in favour of keeping mandates in place, with 67 per cent saying we need to keep restrictions in place to protect public health. One-third of respondents said we need to learn to live with COVID and we should remove all mandates and restrictions, even if our healthcare system is overwhelmed.

https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/majority-of-o ... -1.5771778