Lee Harding: The COVID cure was far worse than the disease

After the first of two weeks to flatten the curve of COVID-19 cases, President Donald Trump said, “We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself.” He was right, yet that ill fate prevailed in the U.S., Canada, and much of the world.

An important paper released July 19 by 3 Canadian academics Denis Rancourt, Joseph Hickey, and Christian Linard in Correlation Research proved this when looking at how many more people died than usual (excess mortality)  in 125 countries with a total of 2.7 billion people.

Lee Harding: Muslim Brotherhood Needs Examination

In July, the government of France did what no western government had done before. Following eight months of investigation into the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), the Senate issued a 244-page report that named MB the top Islamist enemy. The report made 44 recommendations, including banning MB leaders from France and ending international agreements that trained and imported imams. It’s time for Canada to make its own examination.

Canadian security expert Tom Quiggin has wanted Canada to pay heed to the Muslim Brotherhood since at least 2014. Back then, he penned a 202-page report that demonstrated how MB worked subversively through front organizations to advance ideals inconsistent with western values and send money to terrorist organizations.

Lee Harding: Unethical Electric Cars

Anyone who says electric cars will save the world is dreaming. The adoption of electric cars over the next 20 years will barely shave a single percent from the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile, the batteries that power these cars rely on a nightmarish swath of human devastation. 

Most electric car buyers who pride themselves on “doing the right thing” have no idea of the birth defects, premature deaths, child labour, and virtual slavery it took to make their new wheels move. All this is to keep carbon out of the air and a few hundred ducks out of oil sands tailing ponds.

Electric batteries have far more to do with cobalt than carbon. Cobalt is an essential element in lithium-ion batteries, the lighter kind that packs more energy than lead-acid batteries. It is true that these “green” batteries are also found in tech devices and not just cars. But the 10 grams of cobalt for a smartphone battery or the ounce in a laptop are overwhelmingly outweighed by the 15 pounds of cobalt found in a typical electric car battery.

Lee Harding: High-Performance Government

“It’s Time for High-Performance Government,” Howard Risher says in his 2017 book. Amen to that.

But how? Risher says, it’s not about efficiency, it’s about making workers engaged. And on that score, government is 30 years behind the curve.

The 1990’s began with a recession in both Canada and the United States. This forced companies to re-think the way business was done.

Lee Harding: Taking the Air out of Airbnb

In Canada, Airbnb is getting…well…deflated. The ironic reason is that it has become too popular.

Airbnb is an online service for “Air bed and breakfast.” It’s for guests who want a cheap place to stay the night, even if it’s on an air mattress. Since its 2008 launch in San Francisco, Airbnb has exploded in popularity, boasting a net worth of $31 billion, having hosted more than 200 million guests in over 65,000 cities and 191 countries.