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Matt Oliver

@sameo416.bsky.social
4.7K followers 7.8K following 6.2K posts

Red River Métis ∞ Scotch-breed ∞ RCAF Veteran ∞ Feral theological engineer ∞ aerospace/electrical ∞ P.Eng. ∞ he/him ∞ lawful chaotic ∞ Disabled ∞ rrmc rmc sfu uec ∞ nd

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Reposted by Matt Oliver
Mark Ungrin @mark-ungrin.bsky.social · 5h
Public health and infection control have just spent most of a decade demonstrating their complete incompetence dealing with aerosol (airborne) transmission of disease. Given a new opportunity to grab for power, they are not going to suddenly end the turf wars and disinformation now.
themoscowtimes.com
Nearly 200 People Under Observation After Irkutsk Lab Worker Dies From Plague - The Moscow Times
Health authorities in Siberia’s Irkutsk region have placed nearly 200 people under medical observation after a laboratory worker died from plague, according to media reports and a statement by a regio...
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Reposted by Matt Oliver
Dr. Mar @boldnewme.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
"Never be afraid to make some noise. It is their shame, not yours."
@kbarton1001
On my first big overseas client conference, I was at a dinner seated next to a drunk client who kept trying to fondle me under the table. I was young, distressed, and had no idea what to do. I moved my legs as far away from him as I could, moving into the space of the man next to me, who then started patting my legs! The Regional Manager was a French woman who caught my eye, gestured for me to go to the bathroom and when I came back had switched chairs with me.
What happed next was epic. A few minutes after I sat back down, she raised her hand with his hand captured in hers and announced loudly "Does anyone know whose hand this is? I found it in my lap." There was dead silence at the table. She threw his hand back at him and said calmly "next time I pick it up with my fork." Then she started a new conversational thread and things moved on.
After the meeting she found me, gave me a hug, and said seriously "Never be afraid to make some noise. It is their shame, not yours."
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Reposted by Matt Oliver
🏳️‍⚧️Trevorlynn 🦇David🦇 Cooper🏳️‍⚧️ @awholedamntown.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Yeah, DARK SIDE OF THE MOON is overrated, but the older I get the more I keep coming back to it. It really is a perfect record, if you're into the sound of Pink Floyd. The lyrics genuinely do haunt me at times. The lyrics to "Breathe," "Time" and "Us and Them" in particular.
"Time" lyrics by Pink Floyd, 1972-1973.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter, and waste the hours in an offhand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine, staying home to watch the rain
And you are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run, and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath, and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say
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Reposted by Matt Oliver
Bean & Sprout's Mom @beansproutsmom.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Related: www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/article/ioni...
greenbuildingadvisor.com
Ionizer Company Sues Indoor Air Quality Expert - GreenBuildingAdvisor
An appeal to support Marwa Zaatari, Chief Science Officer at Dzine Partners, who is being sued by Global Plasma Solutions.
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Reposted by Matt Oliver
Dick Zoutman @dickzoutman.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
This paper is a trial published in July 2025 and used Nonthermal Plasma as an air purification method in office settings. Here is what I conclude from the publication:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Nonthermal Plasma Air Purification Reduces Infection Rate and Alleviates Symptoms in Upper Respiratory Tract Infections: A Randomized Controlled Trial
As most of our time is spent indoors, indoor air quality is crucial, especially during seasonal virus outbreaks. Acute upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs) are among the most prevalent diseases...
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Reposted by Matt Oliver
John Pavlovitz @johnpavlovitz.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
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Reposted by Matt Oliver
Amanda Hu @amandalhu.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Love this super great and accessible guide. I’m repeating others’ points but people have decided where they stand on this. More stats and numbers probably won’t move people at this point, so the critical task now is get out the vote and making sure people know how to vote based on their choice.
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Reposted by Matt Oliver
Erica Ifill @wickdchiq.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Read my latest column on this National Day of Truth and Reconciliation. I name names! “Political institutions and political leaders have effectively played their part in minimizing the horrors of residential schools” www.hilltimes.com/2026/09/30/o...
hilltimes.com
Outrage rings hollow when paired with lack of action on residential school denialism - The Hill Times
Political institutions and political leaders have effectively played their part in minimizing the horrors of residential schools.
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Reposted by Matt Oliver
Deb Haaland @debhaalandnm.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
My grandparents survived the terrible abuse of the Federal Indian Boarding School Era. That trauma wasn't isolated to the past—it was carried down through my family all the way to me. And there are so many families like my own across Indian Country.
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Reposted by Matt Oliver
Bean & Sprout's Mom @beansproutsmom.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Uh, that H5N1 outbreak on the mink farm in Utah is a 5-alarm fire 😲 No FDA help for farmers to facilitate a cull, no vaccine administration, and - WTH - no human infection surveillance.
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Reposted by Matt Oliver
Pam Palmater @pampalmater.com · 01/10/2026
It was an honour to host Turtle Island Talks and hear from Phyllis Webstad whose story inspired Orange Shirt Day; Niigaan Sinclair who discussed residential school denialism; and Michelle Good who reflected on the path forward. Listen on the Indigiverse on SiriusXM! can.siriusxm.com/player/show/...
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Reposted by Matt Oliver
Amanda Hu @amandalhu.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Important update on the St. Dunstan’s School/Calgary Indian Industrial School site (featuring a momentary return byline from the great @cbcscott.bsky.social): www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
cbc.ca
City taking steps soon to memorialize former Calgary residential school | CBC News
A city-owned agency will soon place signs to mark the site of a former residential school in southeast Calgary, which operated from 1896 to 1907.
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Reposted by Matt Oliver
Jon Cooper @joncooper-us.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I hope this headline haunts Eric Schmitt for the rest of his pathetic political career.
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Reposted by Matt Oliver
🔬🔭🧭👨‍💻🏞️👾🤖🌡️ @dcrinyyc.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Loads of sick people right now. Statistically it's most likely to be Rhinovirus (here in YYC). If you've gotten sick from this & you didn't want to, it means that you need to up your airborne protection game. Better masks, more consistently.
Screen shot of laboratory test positivity for respiratory viruses. Rhinovirus is %27 of all current tests.
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Reposted by Matt Oliver
Raywat Deonandan 🍁🇨🇦 @deonandan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
There is a moment at the very very end of Abdul El-Sayed's podcast with Ezra Klein (book recommendation section) where he talks about the idea of "speaking truth to pain" and this will be staying with me for an extremely long time. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/o...
But there’s also something about truth to pain. We talk a lot about truth to power, but I think it’s actually a lot harder to speak truth to pain. I say that as someone who went to medical school, realizing that in a lot of our politics right now, we’ve got to get a lot better at speaking truth to pain if we’re going to get through some of these challenges that we have.

What does “truth to pain” mean?

It’s one thing to look power in the eye and say: You’re wrong about this. But there’s a way in which pain is very difficult to reason with. Because when somebody is in their pain, they’re in their trauma. They see that pain, and they may not see what’s causing it.

I remember just very explicitly being in a trauma ward with a gunshot wound patient and watching this big guy with his hand on his gunshot wound. All the folks are trying to pull his hand off his pain, that point of his gunshot wound, this clear vulnerability.

And this emergency room doctor had the presence of mind to be like: Everyone, stop. And she looks him in the eyes, and she’s like: I get that really hurts, and I’m so sorry that you’re here. You don’t want to be here. We don’t want you to be here. But if you don’t let us fix this, you could die. So I’m going to take your hand, and I’m going to move it off, OK? Because I need to get there so that you can live.

She was speaking truth to pain. He understands he’s at the hospital, he needs care, but he also doesn’t want anybody to touch the wound. Which is a natural thing. And I think it is a really great metaphor for how we think about a lot of these challenges we talked about today.
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Reposted by Matt Oliver
Jonathan Howard @joho.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
sciencebasedmedicine.org
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya on Measles: “I Think I’ve Done My Best.”
As football coach Bill Parcells famously said, “you are what your record says you are”.
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Reposted by Matt Oliver
The Beaverton @thebeaverton.com · 30/09/2026
University assigns Cornell 7 to get ChatGPT to write their essays
thebeaverton.com
University assigns Cornell 7 to get ChatGPT to write their essays
ITHICA, NY – As punishment for drugging and gang-raping a young woman for over seven hours in 2024, Cornell University has assigned the seven known perpetrators to generate essays using ChatGPT.
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Bean & Sprout's Mom @beansproutsmom.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Preventing COVID is social justice. Yes, that means masking, clean air, AND vaccines. Medical uncertainty, structural inequities and disease: The experiences of long COVID among racialized immigrants and racialized non-immigrants in Canada www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
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Reposted by Matt Oliver
Jenn Dowling-Medley @aliasjdm.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
brutal when you see a senior pet that's up for adoption because their family couldn't afford their care anymore... always wonder if that's truly the only issue why the shelter doesn't just pay for the meds and let the pet stay where it is
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Reposted by Matt Oliver
Jonathan Howard @joho.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
More here.
sciencebasedmedicine.org
Dr. Vinay Prasad Created Long Lists of Randomized Trials for Other People to Do. Does That Make Him an EBM Guru?
"Just saying the same thing over and over again, whether in social media or in medical literature, ain’t gonna get it done."- Dr. Eliezer Van Allen
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Matt Oliver @sameo416.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The pay went quickly but that was because I built a relationship with the person who processed time sheets, and she kindly explained how to do it. I didn’t even get an explanation as to what they considered appropriate PPE for visiting partially demolished buildings. It was maddening.
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Reposted by Matt Oliver
Julie S. Lalonde @julieslalonde.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
It's madness!
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Matt Oliver @sameo416.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
When I did contract engineering no one explained any of their practices or processes. Took 2 years to finally understand how reports were reviewed and approved.
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Julie S. Lalonde @julieslalonde.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I've been self-employed since '11 & the worst part of it is not the constant hustling or the complicated taxes. It's that every client has their own policies & bureaucracies & they never tell you what they are, but expect you to know them. It's all made up, guys! You gotta inform outsiders!
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Reposted by Matt Oliver
Canadian Birdie 🖇️ @cdn-birdie.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC... journals.library.ualberta.ca/cjfy/index.p... www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-... They Called Me #1 by Bev Sellars The Reason You Walk by Wab Kinew A list of many more books: www.cbc.ca/books/48-boo... 5/5
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
The intergenerational effects of Indian Residential Schools: Implications for the concept of historical trauma
The current paper reviews research that has explored the intergenerational effects of the Indian Residential School (IRS) system in Canada, in which Aboriginal children were forced to live at schools ...
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Reposted by Matt Oliver
Karen Douglas 🇨🇦 @karenbdc.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
True! Today I waited at a crosswalk. When I got the right of way, a Jeep right turned (on his red) almost into me. I yelled & threw up my hands after he completed his turn (I stopped to wait on him). He went around the block to come back & yell at me. 'You didn't even come close to getting killed'
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CovidSolutions @covidsolutions.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Remember, we can have #VirusFreeAir...
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Dr Noor Bari @njbbari3.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Without going into details I have had to support people through hearing loss, loss of appetite cos they can’t taste their food, losing their voice, losing their job, losing their company if they are a sole trader… You think this can’t happen to you?
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Reposted by Matt Oliver
Mark Ungrin @mark-ungrin.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Worth highlighting the difference between worker deaths at Cargill and the silence on everyday practice in healthcare: when OHS failures kill nurses, no one cares. Hospital IPC owns OHS, controls diagnoses and treatment, does their own body counts - and buries their own mistakes. #polisky #cdnpoli
calgaryherald.com
Protecting HCWs and patients: An impossible fix, or an essential one?
As of March 2022, 12 AHS HCWs had died from COVID-19. Presumably, this hasn’t stopped, but AHS stopped reporting them as of that date.
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CovidSolutions @covidsolutions.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Remember, we can have #VirusFreeAir.
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Reposted by Matt Oliver
Danielle Beckman @daniellebeckman.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
“A pathogen invades, sticks around, and causes trouble.” Sometimes the most important scientific questions can be summarized very simply. Excellent Smithsonian piece on #LongCovid, viral persistence, and the scientists still working to understand what SARS-CoV-2 can leave behind.
smithsonianmag.com
For Many Americans, Covid Is Still a Chronic, Disabling Disease. These Scientists Are Working Tirelessly to Bring Them Relief
Long Covid saps the strength and vitality of patients, who have little recourse to fight it. A team of specialists—including an afflicted researcher working mostly from her bed—is looking for answers
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Amanda Hu @amandalhu.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Never stopped ✌🏼
Picture of woman wearing a brown respirator mask, glasses and a vest and collared shirt sitting in an office making a peace sign with her hand
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Reposted by Matt Oliver
Mark Ungrin @mark-ungrin.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I suspect equal parts negligence and then dishonesty to evade liability for previous negligence. The medical policy and guidance space is a complete snake pit. Vast amounts of money in play, Big Guidance with its snout in the trough, the worst of the medical profession at the top. The processes...
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Mark Ungrin @mark-ungrin.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
An absolutely damning report on the unnecessary COVID deaths of workers at the Cargill plant in High River, AB, highlighting public health and infection control's mismanagement of the crisis, and failure to engage OHS or follow the precautionary principle. albertapolitics.ca/wp-content/u...
As the evidence marshalled in this report shows, the massive
outbreak associated with Cargill was by no means inevitable. It
occurred because systems designed to protect worker health and
safety failed. And they failed for a number of interrelated reasons.
OHS and AHS Did Not Adopt the
Precautionary Principle
The virus SARS-CoV-2 is spread among humans via aerosol
transmission. The period during which someone with COVID-19
can transmit the virus varies depending on factors such as the
variant and severity of illness, but transmission can occur both
before and after symptom onset. Some infected individuals never
experience illness but still spread the virus to others.
At the beginning of the pandemic, Hinshaw and many other
public health leaders believed that COVID-19 only spread via
large droplets and that asymptomatic transmission was not
occurring. As a result, AHS EPH primarily focused on physical
barriers, physical distancing, hand-washing, and surgical masks as
preventative measures at Cargill.Cargill, AHS, and OHS did not consider the possible range of
aerosol transmission of the virus in a large crowded industrial
work setting and, therefore, did not prioritize — let alone consider
— higher-level control measures such as improved ventilation, air
filtration, and N95 (or equivalent) respirators.
Surgical masks, which were made mandatory at Cargill after April
16, provided inferior protection to workers working eight hours a
day, especially for those working in close quarters with inadequate
ventilation. Sometime between the closure of the facility (April
22) and its reopening (May 4), Alberta OHS came to believe that
tight-fitting, higher-filtration respirators (N95 or equivalent
masks) were required, as demonstrated by the ministerial order
approving KN95 masks (May 3) and OHS officers’ decision to wear
N95 masks during their May 4 inspection. However, the evidence
suggests that this view was not shared by Hinshaw.
Ventilation was not identified as a potential factor in the spread
at Cargill until early May, and even then, there is no evidence that
this pathway was further investigated by AHS or OHS.
Had OHS, AHS, and Cargill adopted the precautionary principle,
which requires taking proactive measures to maximize human
safety before the science about the transmission of a new virus
is known, more aggressive control measures would have been
adopted early on. If improved ventilation, provision of N95 masks
(or cartridge respirators), and other actions had been taken earlier,
hundreds of workers may have been spared from illness.None of the evidence we reviewed showed any communication
or coordination between AHS EPH officials and Alberta OHS at
this time. In response to our freedom of information requests for
email correspondence between the manager for OHS in Calgary
and several AHS officials who were directly involved in the Cargill
response, we were informed by the Government of Alberta’s
access to information that “a thorough search […] did not yield any
records responsive to your request.”195
By April 16, the total number of known confirmed positive cases
had reached approximately 550. At this point, there had only
been one in-person inspection of the plant, that being AHS’ April
7 visit, which resulted in non-binding recommendations. And, as
mentioned, there was no epidemiological analysis of the outbreak
showing the temporal pattern of the spread within the plant and
in the community.
An internal AHS MOH update on April 17 noted that “84% of
new COVID-19 cases [in the province] are in Calgary Zone, ‘most
related to Cargill.”196 By this time, a Cargill worker and union shop
steward had been admitted to an ICU. On April 18, another worker
would need life support care in the ICU. Cargill, AHS, and OHS had
lost control of the outbreak.Echoing Cargill’s response to the union’s April 12 letter, Dreeshen
cautioned workers not to listen to “inflammatory rhetoric” and
appealed to them to instead focus on information from public
health experts:
“…On this call are Alberta’s best medical minds and
they provide Alberta’s government with the best up
to date information on a daily basis and I would just
like to encourage everyone to not get distracted by
misleading noise or inflammatory rhetoric because
any government's primary goal — our core goal — is
to keep our people safe…”
Immediately after the town hall, Dreeshen posted on his social
media: “Directly communicated with [Cargill] workers to reassure
them that their worksite is safe.”217 Internal email messages
among senior officials with the Ministry of Agriculture and
Forestry suggest there was also “a request” to share some “key
messages” about the safety of Cargill’s plant through Hinshaw’s
Twitter account.218
Hours after the town hall, Dr. Nick Etches, acting lead medical
officer of health for the Calgary Zone, wrote to colleagues
requesting assistance with an epidemiological analysis of
the outbreak:
“[Hu] just spoke with [Hinshaw] and she wants us
to answer some questions that will likely require
additional epi support. Essentially we want to
determine the proportion of the Cargill-associated
cases that are due to:
1) Workplace transmission
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Bean & Sprout's Mom @beansproutsmom.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
bsky.app/profile/bean...
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Matt Oliver @sameo416.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Imagine OH&S showing up at an elevated worksite wearing full fall arrest gear, and watching workers dance around on beams 15 storeys up in runners and straw hats, and doing nothing about it. That’s exactly what happened over and over again, in every facility inspected.
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Matt Oliver @sameo416.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
And this one sentence sums up the entire public health response: Informed of this in an email, Hinshaw, the Alberta Health Services chief medical officer of health, replied: “Why will the Labour (ministry) reps be wearing N95 masks?” Along with OH&S complete failure to enforce its own code.
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Matt Oliver @sameo416.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Glad the report is published, although it should be a national inquiry. At least in 20 years time we’ll have both the Campbell Commission and the Parkland Institute reports to look at and wonder ‘why did nothing change?’
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🔬🔭🧭👨‍💻🏞️👾🤖🌡️ @dcrinyyc.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
It's mind blowing reading this stuff considering the Campbell’s Commission of Inquiry into SARS. Simply mind blowing.
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🔬🔭🧭👨‍💻🏞️👾🤖🌡️ @dcrinyyc.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I'm going to have to read this report a few times, but on the first skim of the 200 page report, I don't think anything would go any differently if this were to happen again today.
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Matt Oliver @sameo416.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The entire public health response summed up in one sentence. Informed of this in an email, Hinshaw, the Alberta Health Services chief medical officer of health, replied: “Why will the Labour (ministry) reps be wearing N95 masks?”
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Mark Ungrin @mark-ungrin.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
A really good long read from @charlesrusnell.bsky.social on the report on how the UCP / AHS / OHS failed to protect workers at the Cargill plant, including lack of appropriate PPE, which led to unnecessary deaths.
thetyee.ca
Alberta’s Deadly Betrayal of Meat Plant Workers During COVID | The Tyee
A shocking report finds the UCP ignored evidence of high risk.
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Matt Oliver @sameo416.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Here it’s the urban coyotes. Every time I see a ‘where is fluffy?’ poster think, happy coyotes, unhappy outdoor cat.
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Left_of_West @left-of-west.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
It's not uncommon for eagle nests in my area to contain cat collars. Also quite common for the neighbourhood FB page to contain multiple "has anyone seen my cat?" posts 🙄.
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Amanda Hu @amandalhu.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
This is exceptional work 😂
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Matt Oliver @sameo416.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Not to mention a male cat will spray urine on your neighbours outdoor furniture. Or climb your tree and eat all the baby robins. Ignorant people let their cats roam the neighbourhood.
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cait (and adonis) @cait.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
"indoor cats are miserable and they long for the outdoors and you are depriving them of their true nature by trapping them inside" okay here's my cat when he was outdoors vs now that's he's indoors
orange cat all beat up and bloody in the snow :( orange cat asleep splayed out on his side on his blanket
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The Beaverton @thebeaverton.com · 23/09/2026
Meta unsure why women not buying pervert glasses
thebeaverton.com
Meta unsure why women not buying pervert glasses
MENLO PARK, CA — As Meta’s totally cool, definitely-not-creepy smart glasses become more popular with tech bros and straight-up pervs, the tech company is reportedly baffled as to why their glasses wh...
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Jessica Ellis @baddestmamajama.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The truth is, you can belittle maskers, shrug off disabled people, and call us all crazy a million times, but you’re going to have to live in the world you’re building with these choices, and outcomes don’t care that your views are popular right now. www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/mor...
cidrap.umn.edu
More than 1 in 10 US healthcare workers report ongoing long-COVID symptoms, study finds
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