How can you follow COVID science, and follow politicians at the same time？
Episode Stats
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Summary
In the first episode of 2020, Ezra takes a look at the Wuhan Virus, the coronavirus, and the people who are responsible for bringing it to our attention. Plus, Ezra explains why a scientist is the polar opposite of a politician.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Tonight, the science, or should I say the weird science, as it pertains to the Wuhan virus.
00:00:21.760
It's Monday, February 1st. I'm David Menzies, and this is the Ezra Levin Show.
00:00:30.000
Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
00:00:33.520
There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
00:00:37.580
The only thing I have to say to the government about why I'm publishing it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
00:00:48.320
Consider yourself lucky if you never got to see Weird Science.
00:00:51.780
It's a groan-inducing film about two high school nerds who use a computer program to create what they hope will be the perfect woman.
00:01:01.840
I think the screenplay was written by two high school nerds.
00:01:06.220
But it's the title that has always struck a chord with me.
00:01:14.160
After all, there's absolutely nothing weird about science.
00:01:19.520
Certainly not to an ethical scientist who can explain the way in which principles of science work.
00:01:31.400
The boiling point of water is 100 degrees centigrade.
00:01:35.020
The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second.
00:01:38.560
E equals mc squared, and so on and so on and so forth.
00:01:59.580
Okay, granted, that was somewhat awkwardly stated.
00:02:04.580
Oh, and by the way, I take back every mean thing I ever said about Mr. Chrétien
00:02:09.120
in light of the ongoing torture this nation continues to endure
00:02:13.120
under the leadership of Prime Minister Blackface.
00:02:17.340
Anyway, the point is that a scientist is truly the polar opposite of a politician.
00:02:23.540
Most politicians change their opinions and policies on the fly
00:02:27.400
like so many hockey players doing a shift change while the game's in play.
00:02:31.920
The end goal of the politician has very little to do with actually doing the right thing.
00:02:38.500
And it has very much to do about amassing political capital.
00:02:43.000
Job one of the politician, after all, is to get elected.
00:02:51.920
But a monkey throws a bone in the air and suddenly it's 2021.
00:02:55.140
And here we are confined in a biosphere of the bazaar.
00:03:03.720
But in reality, it's more like weird science thanks to that thing that will not leave,
00:03:13.120
Indeed, in the past 12 months, we've witnessed a kind of
00:03:16.560
when-worlds-collide collision involving the realms of science and politics.
00:03:26.260
You see, for about a year now, as politicians release edicts such as cruelly locking down the economy
00:03:32.980
and mandating mandatory face mask rules and social distancing edicts and all the rest,
00:03:40.460
the constant refrain is that they don't really want to inflict all this misery on us,
00:03:51.180
And so it is that virtually every politician of every political stripe
00:03:56.640
has repeated over and over again that he or she is being directed by the science
00:04:03.460
and that we, the great unwashed masses, are fully expected to follow the science
00:04:13.020
Oh, and if you don't follow and listen to the science,
00:04:15.420
well, in the words of Ontario Premier Doug Ford, you're a yahoo.
00:04:20.160
And in the words of Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister, you're an idiot.
00:04:25.360
I wonder which politician will double down by referring to the anti-lockdown types as idiotic yahoos.
00:04:33.980
As we've chronicled for months now, if you do not heed the so-called science,
00:04:39.440
like if you decide to gather with family members for Christmas dinner,
00:04:43.900
or if you decide to venture outside in Quebec past 8 p.m., well, these are super spreader events, don't you know?
00:04:52.180
And the state shall ensure it bashes a science lesson over your thick numbskull head
00:04:58.760
to the tune of, say, $880 or perhaps even more moolah or maybe a prison stay
00:05:05.500
is an order for committing such egregious crimes against humanity,
00:05:09.780
such as, oh, reopening a restaurant or deciding to do some mask-free shopping
00:05:15.260
at those chosen few retailers such as Costco and Walmart.
00:05:20.420
Because evidently there is some science somewhere that somehow chronicles
00:05:27.620
that it is far less risky to shop with hundreds of people inside a big box store
00:05:33.560
than going to a small mom-pa shop that caters to just a couple of customers at a time.
00:05:39.680
Like Claudia's Closet or Noble Toys in Bolton, Ontario.
00:05:44.700
You know, folks, both these little shops have actually been sent letters
00:05:48.100
from the Attorney General's office threatening the owners with imprisonment
00:05:53.480
should they ever have the temerity to open their doors to people who actually want to shop there.
00:06:10.960
If you were to saunter into a bank with a face mask on a year ago,
00:06:15.660
that would have resulted in the manager pushing the silent alarm button.
00:06:19.920
Today you walk into your local CIBC without a mask on
00:06:24.180
and head teller Karen McCarron is going to scream at you
00:06:28.640
as if she were a banshee caught in a leghole trap.
00:06:31.860
Ooh, this new normal is something else, isn't it?
00:06:41.880
Who knew, given all that facial masking out there,
00:06:45.980
that Billy Idol's great ballad, Eyes Without a Face,
00:06:52.520
for those of us living in the not-so-roaring 20s.
00:07:03.200
Honestly, the glory of science is that it is so absolute and unforgiving.
00:07:11.700
Tune into an episode of Forensic Files if you require a proven proof.
00:07:16.980
But these days, when it comes to science in the eyes of political types,
00:07:21.540
and even in some cases, scientists and doctors themselves,
00:07:32.800
Oh sure, Bruce is sporting an Adam's apple and five o'clock shadow,
00:07:40.280
But since Bruce identifies as an asexual, non-binary, two-spirit, lesbian unicorn,
00:07:47.720
and then Bruce shall be referred to as such as he goes about securing a spot in women's wrestling
00:07:54.220
and then proceeds to clean the clocks of biological females.
00:08:00.800
Got to be careful given the pronoun police out there, folks.
00:08:05.700
I meant to say that Bruce's pronoun is Z, Zer, Zay, Zippity, Doo, Da, and sometimes Y.
00:08:14.760
And so it is that just as gender is now fluid, well, science is kind of fluid too.
00:08:22.600
Well, at least when it comes to the Wuhan virus,
00:08:25.660
this is especially the case when politicians appropriate science
00:08:30.200
because politicians must always do the politically correct thing,
00:08:36.360
meaning that truth is always the first casualty.
00:08:42.460
how many times have we seen politicians politicize science
00:08:54.140
Case in point, I reference Premier Ford's infamous bunch of Yahoo slur
00:08:58.320
that was uttered last April when anti-lockdown protesters
00:09:02.300
began gathering upon the lawns of Queen's Park,
00:09:06.080
clearly violating the science that pertains to social distancing
00:09:13.840
If that's the way Premier Cherry Cheesecake is going to roll, so be it.
00:09:24.380
who were part of Black Lives Matter demonstrations
00:09:31.280
Hey, same pandemic, same place, same time, right?
00:09:38.060
what did Premier Ford have to say about those BLM demonstrations?
00:09:50.980
because apparently the Wuhan virus is super intelligent
00:09:58.240
meaning it gives a pass to racial injustice protesters,
00:10:21.140
we have seen small gatherings of generally peaceful protesters
00:10:35.820
Mainstream media has decided to sit this one out.
00:11:15.520
Officer, why are these protesters not allowed to protest
00:11:29.920
because they probably support censorious thugs like you.
00:11:37.600
If you don't give an ID, that'll be obstructed.
00:11:45.760
Media is exempt, but it's like 2.4 and stuff like that.
00:11:58.420
Even standing alone on a street corner is dangerous.
00:12:02.100
So disperse, disperse, disperse for your own safety.
00:12:07.840
And yet, check out this photo of the same police force
00:12:12.500
in this same city when it came to a BLM protest.
00:12:20.340
In fact, the cops, including the chief at the time,
00:12:27.140
Again, science only applies to certain protests, you see.
00:12:31.420
Indeed, check out this front page photo in the Toronto Sun
00:12:35.440
just three days after that egregious crackdown of civil liberties
00:12:44.180
People were being ticketed and arrested for failure to maintain
00:12:50.800
But look at this Toronto Transit Commission streetcar.
00:12:54.420
There's not even two centimeters of social distancing going on
00:12:59.180
in that hermetically sealed city-owned and city-operated vehicle.
00:13:11.160
This is public transit and the socially aware Wuhan virus,
00:13:15.400
much like Toronto City Council, is really gung-ho
00:13:21.440
Thus, Mr. Wuhan virus would never, ever infect those Torontonians
00:13:26.580
who are doing their civic duty by taking public transit
00:13:30.300
and resembling a bunch of sardines in a tin can in the process.
00:13:37.140
But in reality, this is the problem vis-a-vis political correctness.
00:13:42.420
When politicians preach science, science goes right out the door.
00:13:47.780
Even worse, what is one to make of those bona fide scientists
00:13:55.960
For yes, there are indeed scientists who believe that the principles behind science
00:14:01.720
are not absolute but rather intermittent and fluid.
00:14:08.180
Case in point, check out this Jump the Shark tweet from Jennifer Nuzzo,
00:14:18.040
back when massive Black Lives Matter gatherings were occurring.
00:14:23.140
We should always evaluate the risks and benefits of efforts to control the virus.
00:14:30.100
In this moment, the public health risks of not protesting
00:14:34.440
to demand an end to systemic racism greatly exceed the harms of the virus.
00:14:44.580
Dr. Nuzzo seems to believe that while the virus is dangerous,
00:14:53.760
Well, if that's the case, let's forget about all those COVID crap provisions
00:15:00.920
And instead, let's ramp up the social justice programs
00:15:13.500
given that your street cred as an epidemiologist has all but vaporized due to that single idiotic tweet.
00:15:23.260
Maybe there are more deaths that can be attributed to racism than the coronavirus.
00:15:28.620
So how about we reopen the economy so that people of all races and religions and skin color
00:15:35.620
can get back to work and actually earn a living as opposed to following the stay home edict
00:15:43.360
and vegetate, courtesy of the orders of Dr. Doug Ford?
00:15:50.020
Look, we know the Wuhan flu is almost exclusively lethal to the very elderly and the very sick.
00:15:56.660
And don't get me wrong, their lives have meaning too.
00:15:59.880
But the point is, this virus is very picky when it comes to who it targets for a death sentence.
00:16:07.900
Is there really any merit when it comes to penalizing the relatively young and the relatively healthy
00:16:14.340
for a virus that has a recovery rate between 97 and 99.7%?
00:16:27.460
Now the question arises, what's worse than a politically correct scientist?
00:16:35.900
Remember this hot mic moment in December involving a discussion between Ontario's two top doctors,
00:17:03.140
Yaffe would appear to be less a doctor and more a parrot.
00:17:07.140
And hey, I hate to be impolite to Dr. Frankenstein.
00:17:14.980
And please, folks, refrain from passing Yaffe some papers stating that the law of gravity has just been repealed.
00:17:24.240
This automaton might actually think it's true and jump from the window of her ivory tower
00:17:28.980
in the tragic wrongful belief that she will simply float back down to earth like a wayward feather from a seagull.
00:17:37.320
Still, Yaffe is a ham and egger compared to numero uno medical guru in the U.S.
00:17:47.800
Do you remember how about a year ago Fauci warned people not to wear a mask?
00:17:55.200
That doing so would result in more harm than good?
00:17:58.440
And then weeks later, he did a complete 180 by telling people to mask up.
00:18:04.300
And now he's been advocating double and even triple masking based on what?
00:18:13.380
Geez, what new level of hell does Dr. Fauci want us to descend into?
00:18:19.000
I mean, it's brutal enough trying to understand the clerk at the local PetroCanada
00:18:24.240
wearing a single face mask while standing behind a plexiglass shield
00:18:28.880
as he asked you if you'd like to play Encore with that 649 Quick Pick.
00:18:33.800
But imagine the horror of trying to have a conversation
00:18:37.860
when everyone is going around sporting three mouth diapers.
00:18:43.220
Wow, we're talking Charlie Brown teacher territory here.
00:18:47.340
And say, Doc, where is the actual science indicating
00:18:54.080
a triple wrapping of non-medical masks will do more harm,
00:19:00.920
You know, I pray for my American friends that Fauci is a better doctor
00:19:15.720
So it is that the Wuhan virus world in which we live,
00:19:19.960
decisions are not being governed by science, but, well, intermittent science.
00:19:26.980
Indeed, science is only truly championed when it is politically convenient
00:19:36.000
But alas, when one merges science and politics,
00:19:40.040
what you end up with is a combination of political science
00:20:07.180
I'm David Menzies, and I'm hosting the Ezra Levent Show.
00:20:16.860
And you see, the big boss man himself came down to the protest,
00:20:20.980
the Yahoo Nation protest, the anti-lockdown protest in Toronto on Saturday morning.
00:20:27.080
And, well, we spent about five hours, I think more than five hours,
00:20:33.720
The good news is the police modified their behaviour somewhat.
00:20:39.680
The bad news is I don't think Toronto really is as free as it should be.
00:20:44.900
And without further ado, Ezra, what did you make of witnessing the police
00:20:50.100
and the interaction with the protesters firsthand?
00:20:53.620
And first of all, thanks for hosting the show this week.
00:20:55.960
And I just want to tell folks, obviously, I'm here in the studio.
00:21:02.220
And just the hours a day that I spend on the show and on the things,
00:21:11.420
So I will be popping in every day to say a quick hello.
00:21:24.440
First of all, thank you for going down for 10 months in a row
00:21:32.960
or sometimes I try and follow it in real time on my phone.
00:21:35.820
And last week was so disturbing, like 10 days ago,
00:21:38.400
it was so disturbing to me to see what can only be called police brutality.
00:21:45.420
not just of you and our other journalists being physically pushed,
00:21:49.340
but the insane arrest and physical brutishness shown by Toronto police.
00:21:56.320
It truly is reminiscent of what we see in Russia these days
00:22:02.320
So I went down on Saturday to show my solidarity with you and the others,
00:22:05.920
but to witness with my own eyes what the police were going to do,
00:22:09.540
and to talk to, if I could find any commanding officers,
00:22:13.420
to let them know with great clarity that if they touch our team,
00:22:21.800
And this is, we've already sent them a legal demand letter.
00:22:28.580
So I was there to see with my own eyes how bad it would be or wouldn't be,
00:22:38.100
I mean, you've been doing a great job for 10 months.
00:22:41.240
And to my mild surprise, they seemed to have pulled in their talons a bit.
00:22:48.640
Now, partly because it was more a marching protest than a static one, I think.
00:22:55.260
So after we spent about five hours there, I mean, I got some great exercise.
00:23:01.500
But I went home, and my worst fears were not realized.
00:23:06.720
That said, I don't think that the police department has properly addressed their past violence.
00:23:11.940
I don't think they've knocked you around physically.
00:23:17.180
And they also addressed what was, let's be honest, Ezra,
00:23:21.320
a lie going back a week ago Saturday where they said,
00:23:25.160
essentially, freedom of the press has been suspended at Yonge Dundas Square.
00:23:29.560
That miscommunication was clarified about 48 hours later.
00:23:34.820
And you were very adamant that we were going to cover this come hell or high water.
00:23:39.700
And when I first presented at these various locations,
00:23:43.160
I would look and find who appeared to be the most senior officer.
00:23:46.600
It's hard to tell sometimes because of how they were dressed.
00:23:49.000
And I am not an expert in the different uniforms.
00:23:52.660
But I did find some people who seemed to have the age and stature and rank.
00:23:59.560
And, again, to my mild surprise, they were very pleasant.
00:24:07.580
I mentioned to several senior officers that their stance of 10 days ago saying free press was suspended,
00:24:15.860
they acknowledged that that was incorrect and that they've corrected it.
00:24:19.100
I told them that if there were any assaults by their people, we would sue them.
00:24:29.780
I also said, by the way, don't do that to other people too.
00:24:32.860
But I was there to make sure our team was fine.
00:24:35.080
And it looks like our team was untouched on the weekend.
00:24:40.700
But let me, can I share a couple other anecdotes just while I was down there?
00:24:44.280
And, by the way, we should point out Kellyanne Wolfe was arrested again and under dubious charges.
00:24:51.920
And once she was gone, the march sort of marched off on a nameless direction.
00:24:59.780
But here's a few observations I made that I probably wouldn't have made just watching things from home as I usually have done.
00:25:08.420
The first is a shocking reminder of the decay of Canada's greatest city.
00:25:14.440
And when I say greatest city, it's the largest city, the richest city, the city of the head offices, the media and banking center.
00:25:23.140
Toronto, I mean, I'm a Calgary boy, so I have a rivalry with Toronto.
00:25:27.540
But by most measures, you would say Toronto is the greatest city in Canada.
00:25:31.680
It's the fourth largest megalopolis in North America.
00:25:34.760
It's a, it is an outstanding city by some measures.
00:25:40.720
We're there at Yonge-Dundas Square, which is like the Times Square of Toronto.
00:25:44.480
And we see all these cops ready to take on anti-lockdown protesters.
00:25:48.400
And the first thing that happens is a guy comes up and asks me and one of our journalists, Alex, where's the works?
00:25:56.800
And Alex thinks, oh, that's a hamburger shop called The Works.
00:26:08.160
And then we see another lady on the ground, just planting herself right in the middle of Yonge-Dundas Square, and setting up all her gear to start shooting drugs right there.
00:26:19.940
And I swear there were a dozen police cars and 20 or 30 officers right there.
00:26:33.500
Then we walked to, on our journey, we walked by Trinity Bellwoods Park, which is a beautiful, large park that's much beloved in Toronto.
00:26:50.460
And we walked by other parks that I don't know the name of.
00:27:05.120
But whatever the case is, and we should be generous to people who are sleeping outside in the cold.
00:27:11.040
That's obviously not what they want to do with their life.
00:27:14.380
But that has turned the parks of Toronto into dangerous places, and you yourself were attacked by a dog.
00:27:19.880
And the reason I mention that is because Mocha, one of our journalists, he said, well, I live in that building right there.
00:27:24.540
So there's all these young people in Toronto who live in these tall, tall towers, and they don't have a backyard, obviously.
00:27:45.500
But the parks cannot be used by them either because they're physically dangerous.
00:27:56.540
And yet they are being harassed on the street for being in a cluster of five people.
00:28:01.640
That's the one outlet they're allowed to go to.
00:28:06.140
And I don't come downtown that often in Toronto because my life is more in the burbs.
00:28:12.060
To see the decay and the hopeless, to see boarded up storefronts, especially for restaurants.
00:28:16.720
I was driving by our favorite place on Eglinton West, all those Jamaican and Caribbean barbershops.
00:28:25.860
You know when you, that brown newsprint, it's not newsprint, it's just the paper that says, we're shut down.
00:28:32.940
Barbershop after barbershop, restaurant after restaurant, to see the destruction of this great city.
00:28:39.500
And the police not attending to any of these issues, but going after the lockdown protesters.
00:28:47.960
It's sad, you know, and as we spoke about this on our walk, what is the substance of a great city?
00:28:54.240
Whether we're talking Toronto, New York, London.
00:29:04.980
Kitty Corner to Young Dundas is the Pickle Barrel Grand.
00:29:10.240
This month, it was going to celebrate its 40th anniversary.
00:29:19.100
And, you know, the one image I had of the, and I think my wife would have gone crazy observing this.
00:29:26.680
While we were marching along Bloor Street, there was a shoe store.
00:29:34.700
But, of course, you're not allowed in a shoe store.
00:29:36.400
You can go inside a Costco or a Walmart and buy your shoes.
00:29:39.480
And they had this little wooden bench where she sat outside in January in minus nine weather trying on new shoes.
00:29:57.200
They've been ordered by, you know, the likes of Tori and Davila.
00:30:02.880
But these images, Ezra, that's what struck me as so disturbing.
00:30:14.320
February's a dreary time in Toronto and much of Canada.
00:30:17.420
But it's the life of a city is always its people.
00:30:22.800
Well, if they're not already in families and friends, you go out somewhere.
00:30:26.700
Or that's maybe where you meet new family and friends, new friends, rather, a restaurant, a bar, a club, a social gathering, a church, a food bank.
00:30:36.940
You know, actually, the food bank, I walked by one of them.
00:30:43.440
The life of a city is where the people gather and commune with each other.
00:30:53.940
Now, I do see, because I follow things on Twitter.
00:30:57.820
For example, I saw Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota, was at an enormous rodeo, actually.
00:31:05.960
Thousands of people this close to each other, like at any, you know, music concert.
00:31:21.620
And I thought, we don't have to live like this.
00:31:25.600
There are other places, South Dakota, Florida being the best, where they're not living like
00:31:31.360
they're under house arrest, where they're not living like prisoners, where their police
00:31:36.420
are focused on criminals, not innocents, where they're treating sick people, not quarantining
00:31:49.040
And yet, especially in Canada's greatest city, I'm afraid that is the new brand of Toronto.
00:31:53.920
The most paranoid, scared, confused, dreary, hopeless, lockdown city in North America.
00:32:01.240
And Ezra, it should be pointed out that some of the residents in Toronto support the lockdowns.
00:32:07.020
And by that, folks, I'm going to run a little clip here of what happened Saturday.
00:32:10.460
Ezra and I had broken off from the rest of the group.
00:32:14.220
It was Mocha and Efren that were on the scene for this.
00:32:17.700
As the protesters meandered through downtown Toronto, people in high-rise apartment buildings
00:32:24.260
that didn't agree with the anti-lockdown message, well, they not only hurled obscenities
00:32:29.940
and gave the middle finger, they actually threw garbage and ice from their balconies.
00:32:38.320
And Ezra, the disturbing thing, I had a conversation with Efren, our ace cameraman and film editor.
00:33:03.220
The police, after that guy got hit, and Efren believes he was actually concussed,
00:33:09.980
they were doing everything they could to say, please don't press charges, don't press, just move along.
00:33:16.620
And Efren disgust them and said, hey, listen, you've got a case.
00:33:21.640
Well, again, treating innocent people like guilty people, but letting guilty people run,
00:33:26.620
whether it's someone from balcony throwing, that's assault with a weapon.
00:33:29.980
We saw, I mean, it was a bit of a celebrity case, that girl who threw a chair off her balcony.
00:33:38.160
But she was put through a number of trials, a number of hearings on that.
00:33:42.780
And here, the police were more attentive to peaceful protesters, guarding, marching, scolding them,
00:33:49.420
but had not a word to say about an actual crime that they witnessed with their own eyes,
00:33:56.140
That's the kind of policing that destroys the respect and support of a community.
00:34:00.560
Policing only works if it has the consent and support of the people.
00:34:04.280
And I think one of the worst transformations of Canada in the last 10 months
00:34:08.920
is to watch the police go from, as the Mounties motto is,
00:34:13.000
maintain le droit, stand for what's right, support the right, support the law,
00:34:18.020
to run errands for mayors, attack the people, be snitches, be like the East German Stasi
00:34:26.600
in terms of inspecting non-criminal behavior and criminalizing it.
00:34:32.300
I don't know why any police are involved in health matters to begin with.
00:34:38.360
Under all the legislation I see, the role of police is extremely limited,
00:34:42.280
only when there's, not to serve an order or to give a ticket,
00:34:47.080
but only in the case where there's a typhoid Mary running around infecting,
00:34:51.000
or only in the most extreme circumstances, and even then, with a court order.
00:34:58.680
is that a significant portion of Canadians are fine with it
00:35:06.580
It is indeed a very dark vibe in this city of my birth, Ezra.
00:35:17.420
The most important, like you're doing a great job reporting,
00:35:23.400
My primary interest is to make sure our people,
00:35:27.900
you, Mocha, the rest of our team, Efren, are not touched.
00:35:34.300
and frankly, if you ever want to take a break on a weekend, feel free.
00:35:46.920
were pushed off from the Toronto City Hall Plaza.
00:35:51.940
And I felt that as the president of Rebel News,
00:36:01.400
to go down there to make sure you guys weren't roughed up,
00:36:04.820
I might come back next week if it looks like that's another risk.
00:36:09.320
And, folks, if Ezra doesn't come this Saturday, it's my loss.
00:36:14.180
walking the streets of Toronto with Ezra Levin.
00:36:18.000
It kind of felt like a father-son fishing trip.
00:36:25.560
and double-digit minus figures, an ice fishing trip.
00:36:38.460
More of the Ezra Levin show coming up right after this.
00:36:56.320
Tomorrow, my good friend Sheila Gunn-Reed takes the helm.