Believe it or not, the Horgan Government is even worse than BC Liberals on natural gas. But don’t expect them to admit it.
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Why Erin O’Toole Is Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Base
I can only imagine how Outhouse O'Toole must have reacted after learning that Health Canada had approved the AstraZeneca vaccine But it couldn't have been pretty, even with all that lipstick on to try to make him look like a moderate. He was hoping to use the vaccine shortage issue to
Continue readingWarren Kinsella: Three feet by four feet.
New one. Among other things, paint is hard to find in a pandemic.
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: Has a Riot Bloomed Into an Insurrection?
Before volcanoes erupt there’s normally plenty of warning. The volcano goes from dormant to active in stages. Precursors include an increase in the frequency and intensity of earthquakes, steaming or “fumarolic” activity, swelling of the ground surface, that sort of thing. It can go on for days and doesn’t always
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: "The Hole We’ve Already Dug For Ourselves."
Jason Kenney must be kicking himself for not just hanging around Ottawa to succeed Stephen Harper. His trip to take the reins as premier of Alberta has become a succession of non-stop setbacks and blunders. Kenney’s star is fading. Hey, did you hear? Oil prices are back up. I
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Freedom & Power
I am, for the record, perfectly comfortable with where and how I have positioned myself. I am passionately and steadfastly in favour of freedom, democracy, constitutional rule and human rights; liberty, equality and solidarity; and of course, as a result, I am passionately and steadfastly in favour of freedom of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Jason Hickel writes that on a global scale, poverty is the result of inequality and the misallocation of resources rather than underdevelopment. And Brittany Andrew-Amofah makes the case for a wealth tax to both reduce the existing concentration of wealth and power, and
Continue readingHalf an Hour: OER and User Pay
Thanks to Jeff Rubenstein for a thoughtful comment. I agree that the division between ‘content’ and ‘paper + ink’ isn’t always the best way to approach the discussion, and should note here that it was generated as a metaphor to frame a response to a commonly raised issue. Jeff
Continue readingAlex's Blog: A Cure for Deficit and Tax Phobia
It started as a FB post, morphed into this blog, and who knows what’s next: the case for an approach to public finance that enables the level of ambition these times require.
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: A Social Disease
Republicans are objecting to some of Joe Biden’s appointments. Jennifer Rubin writes that most of them are women of colour. For instance, they attacked Neera Tanden, President Biden’s nominee to head the Office of Management and Budget, declaring that her “allegiance is not to America and it’s not to President
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Racial capitalism and the betrayal of Haiti
PetroCaribe Challenge protestors in Haiti, August 19, 2018. Photo from Wikimedia Commons. Domination by multinational corporations and “light-skinned” local capitalists—that’s the story of Haiti as illustrated by one recent event. The day after his already paper-thin constitutional legitimacy completely eroded, Haitian President Jovenel Moïse gave significant amounts of the country’s
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Biden is ahead of Trudeau on climate.
Hey Joe, what did you think of the hypocrisy you got from Trudeau during your virtual summit on Tuesday? One of the first items of business when you became U.S. president was ending that Keystone XL pipeline that was designed to take Canadian bitumen from the Alberta tar sands to
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The DWR Baroque Interlude – J S Bach Cantata- ‘(Wir danken dir, Gott, wir danken dir)’ BWV 29
The Cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach (German: Bachkantaten) consist of at least 209 surviving works. As far as is known, Johann Sebastian Bach’s earliest surviving cantatas date from 1707, the year he moved to Mühlhausen (although he may have begun composing them at his previous post at Arnstadt). Most
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta Budget 2021 hot take: Sweeter language, same old ‘fiscal reckoning,’ and no path to balance
When Finance Minister Travis Toews got up on his hind legs in the Alberta Legislature to read his 2021 Budget Speech Thursday afternoon, there wasn’t as much tough talk about the coming “fiscal reckoning” as Albertans are accustomed to. Instead of the kind of language the United Conservative Party
Continue readingIn-Sights: Electricity policy built on lies
No one doubts that in coming decades, demand will grow, partly fueled by electric vehicles. But that growth will be more modest than claimed by BC Hydro’s agents. It could be easily met by conservation and efficiency programs, upgrades to existing facilities and creation of clean, non destructive renewable sources.
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Sliding Into Irrelevance: Pro-Censorship Stance Obliterates Careers – and Minds
The once-great Naomi Klein. I had great respect for her until she burned her very considerable credibility to the ground, by publicly and viciously attacking Glenn Greenwald recently – after he quit The Intercept, for not agreeing to their new policy of enforced censorship, saying Glenn had “lost the thread”.
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Trudeau Liberals block NDP pharmacare plan in the middle of a pandemic
The entire Trudeau cabinet recently opposed an effort which would have kept a landmark promise to deliver pharmacare made by the prime minister in the past election. Image by Canadian Dimension. On Wednesday afternoon, The Trudeau Liberal government, in alliance with the Conservatives and Bloc Québécois, voted down an NDP
Continue readingWarren Kinsella: My latest: Trudeau’s shame
Shame. At what point, in politics, do you feel that – in your heart, in your bones? On what morning do you get up, and go into the bathroom, and look in the mirror, and wonder who belongs to the face that is staring back at you? It’s coming. That
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: Climate Change – AMOC goes Amuck?
There’s a current known as the Atlantic Ocean circulation that is responsible for the Gulf Stream that, in turn, regulates the weather in Europe and North America. Scientists have worried about the future of the Gulf Stream for years. New research finds that the Atlantic Circulation is weaker than
Continue readingScripturient: Still Can’t Escape the B.S. (Brian Saunderson)
It’s late February as I write this and still our mayor, Brian Saunderson, refuses to do the ethical, the moral, and the RIGHT thing for the town and resign his office while he openly hunts for another, out-of-town, better-paying job.* It’s been more than a month since he admitted he
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