An environmental monitoring plan explicitly designed to improve the reputation of the industry involved is a thoroughly useless environmental monitoring plan.
Continue readingAuthor: Greg Fingas
Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading.- Henry Farrell points out why supposedly progressive ideas which don’t do anything to counter corporate power are doomed to failure:Neo-liberals tend to favor a combination of market mechanisms and technocratic …
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on how the TILMA’s regressive trade rules are spreading across Canada in other forms. For further reading…- I’ve posted several times before about just some of the problems with the TILMA and the arguments made in favour of it, while also compa…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Frequently-quoted answers to simple questions
Pogge asks:Is (Brad) Wall so uninformed that he doesn’t know about (federal subsidies for the oil sands)?It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.This has been a first edition of frequentl…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Unclear on the concept
Quick, try to make sense of this passage from Postmedia’s coverage of the Cons’ plans to reintroduce gun registry legislation this fall:In October 2010, the bill was killed by an opposition motion, which passed by a slim margin of 153-151. The motion w…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.- Jeffrey Simpson has a bit of trouble recognizing that inequality applies at all rungs of the income ladder, not merely as a matter of resolving poverty. But otherwise his latest is well worth a read:Th…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Deep thought
I know I can’t think of a higher priority for Canada at the moment than to declare war on citizenship.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Night Cat Blogging
Flattened cats.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Be a commenter
Susan Delacourt points out some fascinating research on voter turnout – with the key finding being that citizens are more likely to turn out when prompted to think in terms of “be(ing) a voter” rather than merely voting as a one-time action.And I have …
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading.- Sixth Estate examines which party’s candidates have violated the Canada Elections Act in recent elections. And it shouldn’t be much surprise that Canada’s supposed law-and-order party doesn’t have much respect f…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On stretches
Shorter Barbara Yaffe:Of course we can find good news for Liberals – just as long as we get creative in defining the term!Update: Actually, there’s a serious point to be made here. While it’s disingenuous enough to conflate the B.C. and Quebec Libs wit…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Only part of the story
Yes, it’s absolutely appalling that federal prison costs have already shot up by 86% under the Harper Cons (by well over a billion per year), and only figure to escalate further. But let’s keep in mind that today’s news only covers a relatively small p…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On correlations
This summer has seen plenty of crowing from the right over a connection between “economic freedom” (as defined by various corporate think tanks) and GDP levels. But for those of us who see obvious problems with treating GDP as the sole measure of a soc…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading…- While I agree with Murray Dobbin’s latest to a point, I’d think it’s worth clarifying exactly what kind of fight we can and should expect from the NDP over the next four years. To the extent one consid…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On outreach
Yes, there’s plenty to criticize in Murray Mandryk’s continued willingness to serve as a conduit for Sask Party spin. But let’s focus in on the obvious flaws with even the more reasonable part of his latest column:(T)here is another view that we now se…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning ‘Rider Blogging
Let’s start a quick post on yesterday’s game with a bit of relative optimism that figures to be lacking among ‘Rider fans. Yes, the drubbing at the hands of the Tiger-Cats made for the team’s first truly poor all-around performance of the 2011 season. …
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading.- Erin alerts us to the possibility that one of the most appalling aspects of the TILMA might soon be law across Canada with virtually no discussion if we don’t make an issue of it:The most important objection …
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On value debates
Yes, Bruce Anderson’s latest has already been duly mocked. But it’s particularly worth contrasting Anderson’s claim that no party should date to criticize the Cons as overly right-wing against what Canadians themselves actually want done from a policy …
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Signs of decay
I’m not sure whether the Libs think their base will be more fired up by their clinging to the trappings of past power to prevent newly-elected MPs from doing their jobs, or by their criticism of competitors for having the nerve to think about the futur…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted material for your weekend reading.- Paul Wells puts his observations about Stephen Harper’s inexplicable warnings about Canada’s eventual disappearance into column form. But I have to wonder whether Harper is really just taking the logical nex…
Continue reading