No one could have predicted that somebody’s refusal to accept responsibility for causing another person’s death – and indeed insistence that they’re entitled to avoid any questioning about it – might speak poorly to their fitness to govern a province.
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Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Noah Smith examines how even leaving aside such trifling considerations as human welfare, it’s a better economic proposition to provide money to people with less money than those with more. And Matt McGrath highlights how any hope of averting a climate breakdown requires
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: Federal Court Judge "It’s Not Surprising a Criminal Like Trump Pardons Other Criminals"
Them’s fightin’ words from Iowa District Court judge, Robert Pratt. Pratt said, “Apparently to get a pardon, one has to be either a Republican, a convicted child murderer or a turkey.” Pratt was referring to Trump’s Republican allies in the government, security contractors convicted of killing civilians in Iraq, and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Emma Ladds, Alex Rushforth, Sietse Wieringa, Sharon Taylor, Clare Rayner, Laiba Husain and Trisha Greenhalgh study the wade-ranging and severe symptoms resulting from “long COVID”, while Jennifer Lutz and Richard Carmona point out how a health care system dependent on individual funding
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: #Guillotine2020 – Is Celebrity Losing Its Mojo?
Wonderful article in The New York Times about how celebrities are starting to piss people off with their platitudes over the Covid-19 pandemic. The “common man” appeal is losing its currency. Some celebs are trying to spread the message through social media that “hey, we’re all in this together.”
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: Match, Meet Gasoline
We’re told the latest variant of the Covid-19 virus isn’t more deadly except that it is much more transmissible. It’s more easily spread. A greater number of people may be infected for each carrier. In a situation in which deaths are weighed against economic impacts that gives rise to a
Continue readingThe Cracked Crystal Ball II: When Is A Person A TERF?
The short answer is “when they are using TERF arguments to argue against transgender rights and/or treatment issues. The longer answer is more interesting. I got tagged into a Twitter discussion with a former UCP candidate in Calgary whose candidacy ended when some very racist statements she made (and
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: The Gomer Effect
He’s been called the “Dumbest Man in Congress” and more than once at that. Texas representative, Louie Ghomert, has filed suit against vice president Mike Pence. Gohmert’s lawsuit against Pence asks a Trump-appointed judge to rule that the vice president is authorized to throw out the already-cast electoral college votes
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: A "Never Trump" Conservative Writes Trump Has Burned His Bridges to 2024
It might be wishful thinking but Washington Post columnist, Jennifer Rubin, writes that this time (as opposed to every previous ‘this time’) Donald Trump and the GOP are quits. Trump’s ‘burn the house down on your way out’ routine has gone too far for some, not yet far enough for
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: When the Going Gets Tough, the Brits "Di Di Mau"
Every time someone tells you how we’re all in this together think Verebier, a ski resort town in Switzerland. There were some 420 Brits holidaying in Verbier when the virulent strain of Covid-19 was detected in the town causing Swiss authorities to order South African and British visitors into quarantine.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Adam Finn writes about the factors which have allowed for the rapid development of safe COVID-19 vaccines. – Helen Tang discusses the stress and frustration she’s heard from the people she’s had to reach as a contact tracer. Madeleine Cummings tells the stories
Continue readingA Canadian Lefty in Occupied Land: Review: Reading Across Borders
[Shari Stone-Mediatore. Reading Across Borders: Storytelling and Knowedges of Resistance. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.] A lot of Serious People who do Serious Things when it comes to knowledge tend to treat stories and other kinds of experience-based narratives as inherently suspect and not terribly useful. Some do this from
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Owen Jones writes that the oft-repeated message that the public is responsible for the control (or spread) of COVID-19 serves mostly to deflect from gross failures of government. Grant Robertson reports on the deterioration of Canada’s capacity to respond to a pandemic.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your Boxing Day reading. – Kyle Hanniman and Trevor Tombe examine the relative fiscal positions of Canada’s federal and provincial governments – concluding that while there isn’t a need for austerity anywhere, there’s a lot more room to maneuver at the federal level than in most provinces
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Musical interlude
Gordi – Extraordinary Life
Continue readingThe Cracked Crystal Ball II: Contextualizing Racism
During the 2019 Alberta Election, a number of UCP candidates were tagged by opposition as having track records of peddling hate. Several of these candidates ended up stepping aside during the election as a result. One of these was Caylan Ford. At the time, I pretty much shrugged and thought
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: Navigating the Minefield of Short-Termism
Its disappearance went largely unnoticed. There was no post mortem, no eulogy, no deep sighs for what had been lost. Posterity slipped from our consciousness as we ushered in the neoliberal era 40 years ago. Populations would now be administered, not led. Grand vision was a quaint artifact of generations
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – John Klein points out how Doug Ford’s combination of abject failure and laughable deflection in response to the avoidable spread of COVID-19 is par for the course among Canada’s conservative premiers. And Graham Thomson discusses Jason Kenney’s opportunistic use of the pandemic
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: Coming Soon – How to Fix the World
What a great present, full online access to the MIT Technology Review year-ender magazine, “The Long Term Issue.” A glance through the index page produced a bevy of terrific articles on often overlooked issues such as “How to Escape the Present,” an exploration of the damage short-term thinking is causing
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