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Progressive Bloggers // Blogues progressistes

Author: Bill Longstaff

March 22, 2023 Bill Longstaff

Views from the Beltline: A warrant for the world’s “most brazen mobster”

If there has been a knock on the International Criminal Court (ICC) it’s that it has focussed excessively on developing countries. Of the over 50 individuals the court has indicted, the majority are from Africa. The court has now issued a warrant for a European and they couldn’t have made

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March 17, 2023 Bill Longstaff

Views from the Beltline: About eating meat

The Colorado River and those who depend on it are in trouble. A once-in-a-millennium drought now entering its third decade is shrinking water levels to disturbing numbers. The seven states and Mexico that rely on the Colorado are worried. As we should be. Two of the states, California and Arizona,

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March 15, 2023 Bill Longstaff

Views from the Beltline: Iran and Saudi Arabia make nice

The Middle East has been an ugly place for some time. It has become humanity’s favourite region for killing each other although Vladimir Putin is attempting to return that honour to Europe. It was good news therefore to hear that two of the region’s major belligerents have decided to kiss

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March 13, 2023 Bill Longstaff

Views from the Beltline: Joltin’ Judge Brown lasts one round

There was a mystery haunting our Supreme Court throughout February. Justice Russell Brown wasn’t showing up for work. Last week the mystery was solved. The judge has been suspended with pay for getting into a fracas in Scottsdale, Arizona. The judge was in Scottsdale to speak at a ceremony honouring

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March 9, 2023 Bill Longstaff

Views from the Beltline: BIG step toward saving the oceans

Along with our other environmental sins, we are fishing the oceans dry. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, over a third of global fisheries have been fished beyond sustainable limits and almost two-thirds are being fished to their limits. Sharks and rays have declined by over 70 percent.

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March 2, 2023 Bill Longstaff

Views from the Beltline: Conservatives and the CBC

Pierre Poilievre has trotted out a recurrent theme in Conservative election platforms—he will “defund” the CBC. (Is “defund” a steal from woke-speak?) This is hardly surprising. The CBC is the only national mass medium that isn’t owned by the corporate sector, a generally conservative and excessively influential entity. Here in

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March 1, 2023 Bill Longstaff

Views from the Beltline: We are so very rich

The money just rolls in—$892 per second. We are wallowing in it. Alberta’s non-renewable resource revenue for the 2022/23 fiscal year is the highest in history, by far—40 percent higher than the previous high in 2005/05. Twenty-eight billion dollars. The windfall results from high oil prices, record production and higher

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February 26, 2023 Bill Longstaff

Views from the Beltline: Dismissing the low taxes myth with a word

If there’s a common refrain in Conservative election platforms it’s lower taxes. No matter the current tax level, Conservatives believe it must be lower. If this is simply a belief that more money should be spent individually and less collectively, so be it. A reasonable sentiment. But we also constantly

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February 22, 2023 Bill Longstaff

Views from the Beltline: Putin and Peter—What’s NATO got to do with it?

NATO is frequently brought up in the discussion of the Russian aggression against Ukraine. Some pundits suggest it is a cause, even to some a justification. I would suggest NATO has little to do with it except as an excuse for Putin’s imperialism. Putin was a child of the Soviet

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February 21, 2023 Bill Longstaff

Views from the Beltline: Jimmy Carter—a noble life

I was saddened to hear that former U.S. president Jimmy Carter has gone home to die. A statement from The Carter Center read “After a series of short hospital stays, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter today decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice

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February 18, 2023 Bill Longstaff

Views from the Beltline: Alberta NDP health care plan—back to the beginning

The Alberta election campaign begins. The NDP kick it off with their policy on what will no doubt be their, if not the entire campaign’s, major focus—health care. Their proposed plan prompts feelings of déjà vu in those of us with long memories. The heart of their plan is Family

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February 16, 2023 Bill Longstaff

Views from the Beltline: The cats have been herded

Perhaps the best example of the expression “like trying to herd cats” in Canadian politics is attempting to get all the premiers to agree with the federal government. On the other hand, when it comes to collectively disagreeing with the feds, they herd willingly and easily. So full credit to

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February 11, 2023 Bill Longstaff

Views from the Beltline: Population decline is a boon, not a bust

Great concern is being expressed about declining populations. Most recently we have read that even China, the most populous nation on Earth, now experiences a declining population, joining Japan, South Korea, Russia, Italy and others. More countries would be in their company if it wasn’t for immigration, including Canada. Our

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February 10, 2023 Bill Longstaff

Views from the Beltline: Finally—Democrats romance the working class

Early in the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign, Donald Trump was the subject of much mockery. No way this buffoon could win said the pundits. Michael Moore, left-wing rabble-rouser and and film-maker, disagreed. To put it in his words, “This wretched, ignorant, dangerous part-time clown and full time sociopath is

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February 9, 2023 Bill Longstaff

Views from the Beltline: Reining in the reign of plastic

I was modestly surprised last week when my groceries were packed not in the usual plastic but in brown paper bags. The idea, of course, is to get away from single-use plastics. Not that my grocery bags were ever single-use. I took my bags back the next time I shopped

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February 8, 2023 Bill Longstaff

Views from the Beltline: Islam—is the fear justified?

When it comes to religion, I am not a believer nor am I a student of theology. I am but a mere observer, much more inclined to fact than faith. I don’t have a high regard for any religion but there are things about most that I appreciate. Buddhism, for

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February 5, 2023 Bill Longstaff

Views from the Beltline: What about the atheists?

We hear a great deal about religious bigotry these days. Islamophobia so concerns the federal government that it recently appointed an anti-Islamophobia representative—Amira Elghawaby. (Ms. Elghawaby immediately got into hot water herself and had to apologize to Quebeckers for uncharitable remarks she had made about the good people of that

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February 3, 2023 Bill Longstaff

Views from the Beltline: Britain stumbles

Britain (and I suppose Canada) will soon celebrate a brand new king. Charles III will bring another new face to eleven centuries of English royalty. The nation, however, needs much more than a new face. It needs a new government. At least. Over two centuries this small nation built an

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February 1, 2023 Bill Longstaff

Views from the Beltline: Will Frances Widdowson get her job back?

Frances Widdowson was not Miss Popularity at Mount Royal University in Calgary. Over 6,000 people signed a petition calling for her firing. They wanted her gone. And gone she was. The tenured PhD was fired in 2021 after 13 years of teaching and shit disturbing. Her outrages against political correctness

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January 28, 2023 Bill Longstaff

Views from the Beltline: The welfare state and the American dream

The American founding fathers had a vision of a roughly equal society. At least for white people—others didn’t count in either the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. Equality was to be based on the economic asset that mattered most in those pre-industrial days—land. Even the poor would have a

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