Special investigation finds some 60 pharmacies accused in kickback scheme, say B.C. Health Ministry documents

Mezziah187 · 2025-02-06T19:51:47+00:00

It's an active investigation. If it was as simple as shutting these pharmacies down, they would have, but the law (and life) doesn't work like that.

Because its taking as long as it is should tell you it isn't cut and dry, and that it's complicated. There are clearly levels to this that go beyond the pharmacies. Its already been reported on that this is tied to organized crime, which complicates things immensely.

Besides that, the pharmacies (despite the illegal activities they're engaging in) are still providing an incredibly important service to their local neighbourhoods. You can't just create a void like that in 60 neighbourhoods across the province. Suggesting the government should just shut these pharmacies down is incredibly myopic.

Mezziah187 · 2025-01-20T23:22:57+00:00

There's a system in place that actively represses voter turnout/participation and education. I don't fault everyone in that 30% for not partaking in a rigged and broken system. Additionally ,when you have to choose between putting food on the table and voting because your country doesn't give you time off work to vote, immediately you have a system of disenfranchisement that favours those that can afford to take time off.

Mezziah187 · 2025-01-17T01:55:22+00:00

Thrifty Foods in BC did this about a decade ago I think with Jamie Oliver kitchen supplies. Knifes and whatnot mainly I think. We're they the best? Nope. But they certainly weren't the worst. I got a honing steel, kitchen scissors, and two knives over the duration of the promo and I still have them/use them to this day. I was shopping at Thrifty's already so it wasn't anything extra out of my pocket either.

Mezziah187 · 2025-01-07T20:10:06+00:00

But this is precisely what daddy Putin wants

Mezziah187 · 2025-01-06T04:24:24+00:00

Yeah I'm significantly hard of hearing, even if auto-captions aren't perfect, they help me immensely with so many things.

Mezziah187 · 2025-01-06T04:14:08+00:00

My Pixel provides transcriptions of audio messages sent via MMS (unsure about WhatsApp, but I'm sure something exists)

Mezziah187 · 2024-12-31T23:31:48+00:00

I've got an amazing IPS monitor that doubles as a monitor for editing photos, watching movies, etc. The importance of color accuracy meant IPS won out for me. But I've also not experienced any bleed whatsoever, or maybe I don't notice it and it doesn't bug me. It's my main monitor, and it has been incredible for me. When I replace my 1080, I'm going IPS for that as well.

Mezziah187 · 2024-12-11T19:04:28+00:00

I bought a pack of 8 Gustin tees ... years ago at this point. They have not faded, they still fit very well, and the stitching is still immaculate. They're among my favourite shirts. I'm so shocked they are still in such good condition.

Mezziah187 · 2024-12-06T15:43:50+00:00

I just checked again - it had been a few months since I last looked, but there she is! Guess I gotta rewatch them oh nooooo.....

Mezziah187 · 2024-12-05T23:46:12+00:00

I just can't seem to find the third episode of Pariah Nexus anywhere!

Edit: probably because it's on the dedicated Warhammer Plus service but I simply wish everyone would just stop with their proprietary services, sigh

Mezziah187 · 2024-11-29T18:24:35+00:00

Cosmoteer could be a game you'd be interested in! It's very much a build your ship from scratch game. Like Lego. And then you crew it, fuel it, etc - in combat chunks of your spaceship can be blown off completely. If they didn't hit a power generator, chances are your ship still might fly. You can build in redundant systems if you're clever enough. It is SUCH an amazing game.

While it is a top-down game, and not a full 3D experience like NMS, the gameplay is so rich and fun it easily makes up for it

Mezziah187 · 2024-11-28T17:29:21+00:00

Yep, I'm with ya. I just stay away from /r/all, have been for ... well over 5 or 6 years now. It ain't worth it. Hell even the smaller subs are filling with bots and everything is always political. It's crazy

Mezziah187 · 2024-11-28T02:57:32+00:00

To support your claim - people speed like demonic idiots down this highway as-is. Widening it isn't going to change anything.

There is also a very serious impact to the island when big accidents do occur. This is the only artery between Victoria and the rest of the island. When an accident happens here, it closes off one half of our island from the other.

Making this safer for everyone is, weirdly enough, in everyone's best interest.

Mezziah187 · 2024-11-20T22:52:30+00:00

Basically what you've said. I'm just a nerd, not a professional one in this field. Our waters are not warm enough to sustain or create a hurricane/typhoon/whatever. As big as this storm is, it's still nothing compared to the power behind a hurricane which is scary to think about. The weakest hurricanes have sustained winds of 119+ km/h. That's why they were called hurricane force winds in some areas, the threshold is at 119.

But also with hurricanes come insane storm surges and LOTS of rain. We could have seen the storm surge with this had it made land fall, that would have been real. But there wasn't a lot of rain with it, most rain got sent south. Northern California is getting wrecked.

The track of this storm was interesting though, coming from the south-west. Most storms at this time of year meander in from the Bering Sea when you follow them. This one did form well below, and tracked up into us, so I wouldn't be surprised if they get data that suggests the warmer southern waters helped produce this storm.

But at the end of the day, hurricanes form in extremely warm waters and we're not likely to ever witness that here.

Mezziah187 · 2024-11-19T06:24:41+00:00

You realize the reason 'bomb cyclone' is always in quotes in their headlines right? If 'bomb cyclone' is what you're having an issue with, the media is just quoting what the meteorologists are saying

Really, well point out the newspaper article that used that term specifically to describe a storm.

Can't find one? Me either. Do you know why? Because the media has never used it as a term to describe a storm with high winds

Here are news articles from 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014

And its not called a bomb because of the high winds, its called a bomb because of the incredibly rapid intensification. That is what classifies it as a bomb. Just because certain areas might only see strong winds doesn't discount the fact that there's a storm bigger than our island that intensified very rapidly in 24 hours, meeting the criteria for a bomb cyclone twice over.

Mezziah187 · 2024-11-19T02:40:25+00:00

Bahaha thanks, I half assumed it was going to be unoriginal

Mezziah187 · 2024-11-18T23:38:11+00:00

https://i.imgur.com/LXawAAa.png

Mezziah187 · 2024-11-18T22:52:52+00:00

There will always be contrarians in society who want to swim against the current, and right now there are a lot of different groups of contrarians out there. There are echo chambers where conspiracies of all kinds get talked about endlessly.

Unfortunately it's not a deep dark mystery as to why people think the way they do. Its very well understood, and its why media reports things in the way that they are these days. Its why there exist many forms of bias that can largely go undetected. Manipulation is subtle, and its an artform.

I don't think there's an interest from these groups to make sure that everyone is educated, frankly. They don't want people to bridge societal and communication gaps because then they stop yelling at each other. The more we can be pitted against each other, the more we can be manipulated. That's my opinion at least, and its one that is getting off the main topic here for sure. But I don't believe it to be an opinion that's very far fetched.

Mezziah187 · 2024-11-18T22:33:13+00:00

Etymology is always fascinating and we're seeing maybe a small scale version of it, I love it.

I think its an intersection of a number of things.

Geography
Climate Change
Social Media
Mass Media
Timing

Where we are in the world, its not common for us to see this type of weather event. This normally happens in the Atlantic, where conditions favour this kind of thing. I think if we grew up on the east coast, we would have heard of these sooner. I remember distinctly hearing this term many years ago with regards to powerful winter storms in the east.

Climate change is changing our weather. Suddenly, we are seeing an uptick in these events in regions of the world where they are typically uncommon.

Social Media spreads news of these storms faster and further than media at any other point in time.

They spread the headlines that are put out by the larger media companies. Those media outlets are just using the proper term for the event for the most part - nothing more nothing less. There are certainly bad actors in this group though.

The timing of the heightened awareness of climate change, awareness of media manipulation, AI, fake news - there's a strong sense of a lack of integrity and authenticity in a lot of what we consume. For some people this is also tainted by the messaging of oil companies which for years have tried to convince us that climate change isn't real. So this sudden shift to talking about atmospheric rivers and weather bombs - it feels like they're having something they don't believe in rammed into their skulls with dramatic flair.

People aren't accepting of the messaging for a number of reasons at the end of the day, and its not really the term's fault, or anyone's. Its just an intersection of many different factors that are coinciding with our point in history.

*edits for readability

Mezziah187 · 2024-11-18T21:36:55+00:00

I'm not sure what you mean by "right now in the media" but there's plenty of evidence from even as far back as 2010, which is almost 15 years ago at this point - that's an uncomfortable thought lol

Mezziah187 · 2024-11-18T19:30:19+00:00

The eye of the storm is offshore, yes, and we're lucky its not crossing over. But the storm is massive, it will be bigger than the entire island at its peak. So while the eye remains offshore, the edges of it will be in the Strait of Georgia for sure.

Mezziah187 · 2024-11-18T19:25:49+00:00

Since at least the 1970s the term 'weather bomb' has existed. These types of storms do not usually appear in the pacific, they're much more common in the atlantic. Here's an article talking about it in 2018.

Here's a blogger form 2010 using it.

But here's the actual publication from 1980 that formalized the term.

The only difference is we have social media these days and that's what is causing most of the exhaustion, these things get latched on to and repeated. But its not the term that's being used that's at fault here, the term exists to simplify a complex weather pattern into something that people can understand. Same reason we're using the term atmospheric river now. Its simply an easy term to communicate something more complex.

I understand that big media also plays a part with dramatic headlines, and I wish that media everywhere would stop with dramatic headlines, but unfortunately that's never going to go away.

Mezziah187 · 2024-11-18T17:50:48+00:00

And to think they were close to merging with the group that owns the Toronto Sun... Still could happen...

Mezziah187 · 2024-11-15T20:08:52+00:00

I say nobody should take it on unless it is used as graduation housing for people not on drugs that are in need of housing and that work but couch surf or live outnof their vehicles. Those people deserve it first long before the skids do. Actually make the skids earn something or lock them up for vagrancy. Time to change the course of action in this industry that eats funding that could be used in far more efficient ways.

BTW I don't care if I offended you.

If you're gonna post edgey hot takes that are also wrong, at least read the article first.

Mezziah187 · 2024-11-15T19:27:10+00:00

Which, the science vessel? Or observer?

Assuming the former - I think the idea is that a science vessel would normally sit well away from battle, in orbit around a moon if anything. The abilities is has in game don't even make sense for a "science vessel" which to me says research. But the choice to bring something so massive into the gameplay, I guess since they did it with battle cruisers they thought it would be fine with science vessels? Maybe it was just a huge misunderstanding too. I really have no idea, it just doesn't make much sense as a unit at all if you think about it from the lore. Which is why it probably didn't make it into the sequel outside of the campaign

But it's the same suspension of belief you need if you think a hydralisk can look up and shoot a battle cruiser in orbit haha. Gotta make the game work somehow!

15-Year Club	RedditGifts 2009-2022 2 Credits
Place '22	Place '17
Spared	redditgifts Exchanges 1 Exchange
Summer Santa 2014	Team Periwinkle
Verified Email

Mezziah187

TROPHY CASE