Before joining the Vancouver Sun, Fazil Mihlar was Senior Policy Analyst at The Fraser Institute. In his years with the newspaper’s editorial board, Mihlar has continued to serve philosophical goals of the reactionary foundations that finance his for…
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Northern Insights / Perceptivity: Our neighbour devours it greatness
The Fall of the United States, CommonDreams.org, John Atcheson
“Welcome to the late great United States – a country in economic and moral free fall. A country in thrall to a cult of greed, selfishness, and ignorance.
“A country that is trying …
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Cut that red tape again, please
Premier Clark is barnstorming around the province celebrating jobs week. Not wanting to incur more debt and commit new spending, she intends to repurpose planned expenditures. Of course, she also repeats the standard refrain about deregulation:
“G…
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Next we sell off naming rights for schools
Private business promoters aim to eliminate public enterprises through privatization, contracting out and outsourcing. They promote the myth that delivery of services by private, often multinational, companies gains cost and service efficiencies. …
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Let’s play political football with Kitimat
BC Government Online Newsroom, British Columbia to develop liquefied natural gas industry, Sep 19, 2011:
“Premier Christy Clark today announced British Columbia will take four key steps to create a prosperous liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry and j…
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Legends of journalism or dreary old white men?
Anonymous said…
Uhmm, has your blog been hacked? Where did your header photo go? If this is a new “design” please go back to your old header/masthead.
This one is dreary and meaningless. Who needs more old white men in suits in our faces??? I’m in…
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: David Hahn skippers the M.V. Deficiencies
More worthwhile reading today at The Tyee, from investigative reporter Andrew MacLeod, a fine journalist who does not work in an echo chamber rewriting background papers issued by flacks working for government or industry.
“In 2007, after British Co…
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: For service with distinction, to BC Liberals
The fatally flawed Order of British Columbia must be scrapped. Rushing to aggrandize themselves and their own financial backers, BC Liberals destroyed the award’s intended essence. It was supposed to recognize:
“those persons who have served…
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Americanization of heath care undesirable
We commonly hear claims that Canadian healthcare is not sustainable. Most of these statements originate with corporate PR institutes whose objective is to create business opportunities for private clients. The aim is not to preserve, protect and impr…
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Conservation must be our central order of business
Unless we practice conservation, those who come after us will have to pay the
price of misery, degradation, and failure for the progress and prosperity of our day.
(Gifford Pinchot, first Chief of U.S. Forest Service)
In 2008, the energy-giant Enbridg…
Northern Insights / Perceptivity: Guest Post re Enbridge Northern Gateway
Hi Friends,
I just registered to make an oral submission to the National Energy Board panel reviewing the Enbridge Northern Gateway project. I encourage you to do the same.
Enbridge plans to bring an oil pipeline and supertankers to our salmon rivers…
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Hands-on, results driven, action oriented corpspeak
DuPont’s Herbicide Goes Rogue, Jim Hightower, OtherWords.org
In the corporate world’s tortured language, workers are no longer fired. They just experience an “employment adjustment.” But the most twisted euphemism I’ve heard in a long time comes from D…
Northern Insights / Perceptivity: Non-thinking tank
During the lead-up to the HST referendum, business advocate Fraser Institute complained,
“…opponents of the harmonized tax have filled newspapers, broadcast media, and the blogosphere with inaccurate – and often outrageous – claims about the tax …
Northern Insights / Perceptivity: Cluster bombs on aisle 4, torture gear on 3
British Defence Minister Liam Fox is proud of U.K. arms traders. He welcomed dealers and customers from around the world to the 2011 Defence and Security Equipment (DSEi) arms fair in London.
Authoritarians come from far and wide to select the best …
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Harry Bloy’s Entabulator
A source in Victoria leaked information to me explaining why Harry Bloy wants to redirect government spending away from small scale projects like the Richmond Recycling Depot. Bloy thinks that government needs to put real money into a real project that…
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: People in NE BC, prepare for this
ProPublica, Science Lags As Health Problems Emerge Near Gas Fields, September 16
By Abrahm Lustgarten and Nicholas Kusnetz
Wallace-Babb was so sick she could barely move. She vomited uncontrollably and suffered explosive diarrhea. A searing pain shot …
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Disabled losing jobs to get "real jobs"
People with disabilities in a Ridge Meadows supported work program will be out of work if the province withdraws support after 20 years. A September 10 report in the Maple Ridge / Pitt Meadows Times said,
“A program that supports people with disabil…
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: He suffers annoyance and anger
When taking aim at individuals on this blog, I try to avoid false assertions. Readers may argue with my analyses and opinions but I intend those to be based on verifiable data. In comments, fairly wide range is allowed because readers know to be wary o…
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Mark Steel’s Boston Tea Party
Mark Steel Lectures at BBC Open2.net
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Gains-burgers
Ian Reid is back at his computer station this week and that is good news for blog readers. He wrote a piece at The Real Story last October that is worth reexamination because the subject of defective journalism continues to be an issue at the…
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