Workers Unite. A Collective Gathering is Needed! | Canada News Media
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Workers Unite. A Collective Gathering is Needed!

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Just got back from my weekly visit to the local Metro Grocery. As I walked the aisles my head began to shake. The prices have increased quite a bit since October. Some very significantly. I feel uncomfortable with the fact that I became angry, upset, and concerned about what the state of my family’s financials is going to look like come the new year.

Cannot buy a used car if your life depended upon it, and if you could it will cost yah.
The price of New Vehicles is just out of this world, and EV vehicles totally out there financially.
Food continues to increase in cost, but if you can live on cereal or candy you could make it through the week.
Services you once depended upon have become secondary to your primary needs.
The cost of living is crushing us, and our will to continue in this horrid routine called a worker’s life in Canada.

Years ago a group of dissatisfied Canadians camped in front of the Parliament Building in Ottawa. This Convoy of grievances and distrust of of all things government directed the attention of Canadians and other nations to consider their message, a message expressed simply as “Freedom”, but meaning a whole lot more. At the time many of us saw a circus in Ottawa, one in front of the Legislature and the other within. These average Canadians, mostly of the worker’s classes meant to say was they were sick and tired of being told what to do by officials who truly did not have any idea what to do, who spoke in riddles instead of the brutal truth for all to hear. The Legislature turned these Canadians into fiends, troublemakers, and potential domestic terrorists. To this day, the Federal Government continues to persecute many of these people, your neighbors. And for what? Speaking their minds, a right Canada gives its citizens, and also for not doing what the officialdom demanded.

It is my belief, and hopefully the belief of others that what happened in Ottawa should happen in front of every Provincial Legislature in the land. The leaders elected freely, who most often do not consider our needs until a year before an upcoming elect need a “Slap in the Collective Bureaucratic Face” by us, Working Canadians, their families, and neighbors.

The Crisis we all face, particularly our nation’s Working Class. I hope you have realized that our society is slit into classes, much like India has its Caste System.

Upper Class- High Middle Class- Working Middle Class-Working Class(most of us) -The Have nots.

Yeah, it’s been around for centuries, but the media and those who own much of the media have created a notion that we are all one people, one society, one want and one Need. Nothing further from the truth my friends. From the bottom up to the High Middle Class can be seen who pays the bills, and the taxes that keep the lights on in Ottawa. The Upper Class pays little taxes since they send most of the loot to offshore accounts our government cannot get its hands on, yet much that is owned in land, property, banks, trust firms, and financial services are owned by 1-2% of the nation. The guy, big brother, the boss of all things financial. We do not control them, but they manipulate and control us.

Why is housing so limited and so costly? If you own a property in High-Class Rosedale, and you wish to sell it, would you want to compete with lower-cost housing? Compete, hell No! The Developing and Real Estate Sectors have been in cahoots with the Upper Class, deliberately limiting the building and offering of well-priced and competitive homes. Keep prices high and manageable by the Elite.

The Police protect property, often the property of the Upper Class. Limit the hiring of police through manipulation of budgets, and if we are assaulted, we wait a while, while some dog in Rosedale gets hit by a car and three cruisers show up. Who sits at the seat of the Police Service Board, but wealthy folk. Certainly not you, you and you. The Working person is nothing but an inconvenience to the Police, the Upper-class jackboots.

The Working Class does not have any idea how badly the Upper Crust has been bamboozling Canadians. Trillions of dollars leak to other parts of the world, wealth beyond our imaginations transferred from bank to bank hiding the Upper Class’s wealth. Not even the Federal Government knows what is going where and sent by whom! Our financial system works against the Working Classes, through government regulatory management. We have to spend our entire lives saving the limited funds we have to save 10% deposits for a house we cannot afford, yet there are no other alternatives before us, but $00,000 condos, or $2500-3000.00 rentals. Keep the Working Class down and persuade them there is a better future coming.

Transportation is driving the Working Class to bankruptcy. The railway has become ignored as it remains the most cost-effective and green form of transport. Workers are being forced to buy EV Vehicles, which as costly to purchase(will remain so) and very costly to repair. So we have the bus, transit, and flying as ways to travel daily. Or we can do what all workers have done for centuries, WALK! Gas prices are putting the Working Person in a situation of deciding to buy food, or gas so they can go to work.

Education remains a weak form of societal advancement, especially for the Working person. Do these Higher Educational Centers offer real possibilities to get a good paying permanent job? Universities continue to attract wealthy students from foreign lands but find a place for them to stay. Never said the Upper Class was wise or intelligent. Did you know that 65% of the Upper Class inherited their wealth? It’s like welfare for the wealthy. Born in the right family unit I guess. The Cost of Education will continue to grow, but most Working Class People have not had an increase in their wages for a very long time.

Healthcare will continue to increase its costs and prices, introducing 2-3 tier Healthcare Systems. One for the Wealthy, one for the business class, and what’s left the Working Class gets to endure. Staffing in hospitals continues to increase with green staffers, inexperienced. Experienced staffers and professionals will transfer to the other Healthcare Tiers. Private Health Insurance will become much more important in the future. Americanization of our Healthcare system cannot be stopped. Profits are what is truly expected in Ontario, Alberta, and other Provinces. Medical Assisted Dying (MAID) is becoming more accepted and easier to participate in. If you think housing is truly limited, think about senior homes and long-term homes…there is a waiting list of many years, but only for the Working Person, not the Rich. You work all your life, maybe pay off your mortgage, and retire a broken person. Many of us Workers did not take care of ourselves when we were young and invincible. Try to find a senior home you can afford. Using MAID may become a retirement plan after all.

Essential Workers have been willingly exploited by the provincial government in Canada. Paid little for their determined service. Once a Worker asks for more, the government sends it flowers and encouraging words, BUT NOTHING MORE.
The Worker, whether a cleaner of the street, brick maker, or Essential Working Nurse Assistant has become a SLAVE to their Jobs, and the needed money to survive in this economy. The Upper Class knows this and manipulates with no accountability all these hard-working people. Was Slavery of Humans outlawed long ago? Not in this Economy.

A while back transport drivers decided to go to Ottawa and protest a great deal to their elected leaders. They became a symbol to many in Canada, France, and Globally too. An entire generation of Workers, that is blue and white collar alike find themselves ENSLAVED to a financial and economic system that does not care for them a lick. So what do you do when you’re ENSLAVED? You Protest, Revolt, Rebel, Shout like never before, raise your voices and your fists, because those who rule Canada don’t care a bit. MAKE THEM CARE!

Strategy: Our Aboriginal Brothers and Sisters showed us the way. Go to the Railway Crossings block the Wealthy’s transportation hubs and demand your worth. Flow to the capital of each province with signs and thermoses. Peaceful you should be. Invited the Labor Unions to join your crusade. This will take time and some sacrifice from each of you, who may be arrested or even fired from your jobs. The Upper Class has its hands in all things Canadian, like a Giant Ravenous Monster, eager to consume what opposes it. Bring your young and old, for this fight is for them as it is for the Workers of Canada.

Steven Kaszab
Bradford, Ontario
skaszab@yahoo.ca

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STD epidemic slows as new syphilis and gonorrhea cases fall in US

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NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. syphilis epidemic slowed dramatically last year, gonorrhea cases fell and chlamydia cases remained below prepandemic levels, according to federal data released Tuesday.

The numbers represented some good news about sexually transmitted diseases, which experienced some alarming increases in past years due to declining condom use, inadequate sex education, and reduced testing and treatment when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

Last year, cases of the most infectious stages of syphilis fell 10% from the year before — the first substantial decline in more than two decades. Gonorrhea cases dropped 7%, marking a second straight year of decline and bringing the number below what it was in 2019.

“I’m encouraged, and it’s been a long time since I felt that way” about the nation’s epidemic of sexually transmitted infections, said the CDC’s Dr. Jonathan Mermin. “Something is working.”

More than 2.4 million cases of syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia were diagnosed and reported last year — 1.6 million cases of chlamydia, 600,000 of gonorrhea, and more than 209,000 of syphilis.

Syphilis is a particular concern. For centuries, it was a common but feared infection that could deform the body and end in death. New cases plummeted in the U.S. starting in the 1940s when infection-fighting antibiotics became widely available, and they trended down for a half century after that. By 2002, however, cases began rising again, with men who have sex with other men being disproportionately affected.

The new report found cases of syphilis in their early, most infectious stages dropped 13% among gay and bisexual men. It was the first such drop since the agency began reporting data for that group in the mid-2000s.

However, there was a 12% increase in the rate of cases of unknown- or later-stage syphilis — a reflection of people infected years ago.

Cases of syphilis in newborns, passed on from infected mothers, also rose. There were nearly 4,000 cases, including 279 stillbirths and infant deaths.

“This means pregnant women are not being tested often enough,” said Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a professor of medicine at the University of Southern California.

What caused some of the STD trends to improve? Several experts say one contributor is the growing use of an antibiotic as a “morning-after pill.” Studies have shown that taking doxycycline within 72 hours of unprotected sex cuts the risk of developing syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia.

In June, the CDC started recommending doxycycline as a morning-after pill, specifically for gay and bisexual men and transgender women who recently had an STD diagnosis. But health departments and organizations in some cities had been giving the pills to people for a couple years.

Some experts believe that the 2022 mpox outbreak — which mainly hit gay and bisexual men — may have had a lingering effect on sexual behavior in 2023, or at least on people’s willingness to get tested when strange sores appeared.

Another factor may have been an increase in the number of health workers testing people for infections, doing contact tracing and connecting people to treatment. Congress gave $1.2 billion to expand the workforce over five years, including $600 million to states, cities and territories that get STD prevention funding from CDC.

Last year had the “most activity with that funding throughout the U.S.,” said David Harvey, executive director of the National Coalition of STD Directors.

However, Congress ended the funds early as a part of last year’s debt ceiling deal, cutting off $400 million. Some people already have lost their jobs, said a spokeswoman for Harvey’s organization.

Still, Harvey said he had reasons for optimism, including the growing use of doxycycline and a push for at-home STD test kits.

Also, there are reasons to think the next presidential administration could get behind STD prevention. In 2019, then-President Donald Trump announced a campaign to “eliminate” the U.S. HIV epidemic by 2030. (Federal health officials later clarified that the actual goal was a huge reduction in new infections — fewer than 3,000 a year.)

There were nearly 32,000 new HIV infections in 2022, the CDC estimates. But a boost in public health funding for HIV could also also help bring down other sexually transmitted infections, experts said.

“When the government puts in resources, puts in money, we see declines in STDs,” Klausner said.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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World’s largest active volcano Mauna Loa showed telltale warning signs before erupting in 2022

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists can’t know precisely when a volcano is about to erupt, but they can sometimes pick up telltale signs.

That happened two years ago with the world’s largest active volcano. About two months before Mauna Loa spewed rivers of glowing orange molten lava, geologists detected small earthquakes nearby and other signs, and they warned residents on Hawaii‘s Big Island.

Now a study of the volcano’s lava confirms their timeline for when the molten rock below was on the move.

“Volcanoes are tricky because we don’t get to watch directly what’s happening inside – we have to look for other signs,” said Erik Klemetti Gonzalez, a volcano expert at Denison University, who was not involved in the study.

Upswelling ground and increased earthquake activity near the volcano resulted from magma rising from lower levels of Earth’s crust to fill chambers beneath the volcano, said Kendra Lynn, a research geologist at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory and co-author of a new study in Nature Communications.

When pressure was high enough, the magma broke through brittle surface rock and became lava – and the eruption began in late November 2022. Later, researchers collected samples of volcanic rock for analysis.

The chemical makeup of certain crystals within the lava indicated that around 70 days before the eruption, large quantities of molten rock had moved from around 1.9 miles (3 kilometers) to 3 miles (5 kilometers) under the summit to a mile (2 kilometers) or less beneath, the study found. This matched the timeline the geologists had observed with other signs.

The last time Mauna Loa erupted was in 1984. Most of the U.S. volcanoes that scientists consider to be active are found in Hawaii, Alaska and the West Coast.

Worldwide, around 585 volcanoes are considered active.

Scientists can’t predict eruptions, but they can make a “forecast,” said Ben Andrews, who heads the global volcano program at the Smithsonian Institution and who was not involved in the study.

Andrews compared volcano forecasts to weather forecasts – informed “probabilities” that an event will occur. And better data about the past behavior of specific volcanos can help researchers finetune forecasts of future activity, experts say.

(asterisk)We can look for similar patterns in the future and expect that there’s a higher probability of conditions for an eruption happening,” said Klemetti Gonzalez.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Waymo’s robotaxis now open to anyone who wants a driverless ride in Los Angeles

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Waymo on Tuesday opened its robotaxi service to anyone who wants a ride around Los Angeles, marking another milestone in the evolution of self-driving car technology since the company began as a secret project at Google 15 years ago.

The expansion comes eight months after Waymo began offering rides in Los Angeles to a limited group of passengers chosen from a waiting list that had ballooned to more than 300,000 people. Now, anyone with the Waymo One smartphone app will be able to request a ride around an 80-square-mile (129-square-kilometer) territory spanning the second largest U.S. city.

After Waymo received approval from California regulators to charge for rides 15 months ago, the company initially chose to launch its operations in San Francisco before offering a limited service in Los Angeles.

Before deciding to compete against conventional ride-hailing pioneers Uber and Lyft in California, Waymo unleashed its robotaxis in Phoenix in 2020 and has been steadily extending the reach of its service in that Arizona city ever since.

Driverless rides are proving to be more than just a novelty. Waymo says it now transports more than 50,000 weekly passengers in its robotaxis, a volume of business numbers that helped the company recently raise $5.6 billion from its corporate parent Alphabet and a list of other investors that included venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz and financial management firm T. Rowe Price.

“Our service has matured quickly and our riders are embracing the many benefits of fully autonomous driving,” Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said in a blog post.

Despite its inroads, Waymo is still believed to be losing money. Although Alphabet doesn’t disclose Waymo’s financial results, the robotaxi is a major part of an “Other Bets” division that had suffered an operating loss of $3.3 billion through the first nine months of this year, down from a setback of $4.2 billion at the same time last year.

But Waymo has come a long way since Google began working on self-driving cars in 2009 as part of project “Chauffeur.” Since its 2016 spinoff from Google, Waymo has established itself as the clear leader in a robotaxi industry that’s getting more congested.

Electric auto pioneer Tesla is aiming to launch a rival “Cybercab” service by 2026, although its CEO Elon Musk said he hopes the company can get the required regulatory clearances to operate in Texas and California by next year.

Tesla’s projected timeline for competing against Waymo has been met with skepticism because Musk has made unfulfilled promises about the company’s self-driving car technology for nearly a decade.

Meanwhile, Waymo’s robotaxis have driven more than 20 million fully autonomous miles and provided more than 2 million rides to passengers without encountering a serious accident that resulted in its operations being sidelined.

That safety record is a stark contrast to one of its early rivals, Cruise, a robotaxi service owned by General Motors. Cruise’s California license was suspended last year after one of its driverless cars in San Francisco dragged a jaywalking pedestrian who had been struck by a different car driven by a human.

Cruise is now trying to rebound by joining forces with Uber to make some of its services available next year in U.S. cities that still haven’t been announced. But Waymo also has forged a similar alliance with Uber to dispatch its robotaxi in Atlanta and Austin, Texas next year.

Another robotaxi service, Amazon’s Zoox, is hoping to begin offering driverless rides to the general public in Las Vegas at some point next year before also launching in San Francisco.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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