Shorter Murray Mandryk: Who can really say whether we should want to have more or less spread of a deadly disease? What we should focus on is compromising on a moderately disastrous pandemic that we can all be somewhat dissatisfied with.
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Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Joe Vipond, Malgorzata Gasperowicz and Christine Gibson discuss how it’s entirely feasible for Alberta (or any other province) to be COVID-free if its leadership bothers to pursue that goal. And Alex Ballingall and Tonda MacCharles look into the history behind our inability to
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: Is This the First Rumble? A Revolt in Republican Ranks.
It struck me while watching the impeachment trial underway in the Senate that, for Democrats, this was about far more than putting the boots to Donald J. Trump. This was about the mid-terms and showing Americans why business as usual is over in the age of radical politics and
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: How the Internet Re-Wired Our Brains and the Man Who Warned It Was Coming
20 years ago Michael Goldhaber warned us about the complete dominance of the internet, increased shamelessness in politics, terrorists co-opting social media, the rise of reality television, personal websites, oversharing, personal essay, fandoms and online influencer culture — along with the near destruction of our ability to focus. We
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: British Columbia’s Coastal Scourge – Ottawa and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans
The fish farms that proliferate along the BC coast under the auspices of the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans are devastating our marine environment. Salmon farming is wreaking ruin on marine ecosystems, through pollution, parasites and high fish mortality rates which are causing billions of pounds a year
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: The End of the Line For the Cavendish Cottager
A dark day on Friendly Lane, Prince Edward Island, as the Supreme Court of Canada ends Mike Duffy’s quest for redress against the Senate and RCMP. Duffy was seeking $7.8 million in reimbursement and damages from the Senate, the RCMP and the federal government in relation to his November 2013
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: Guess Who’s Back? Sputnik Returns. Amerika Crashes and Burns.
A lot of eyebrows were raised when Russia announced it had a Covid vaccine, the first to be available publicly. Fittingly the Sons of Lenin named it “Sputnik,” after the first man made vehicle launched into space that shook the West. Now it looks like the Kremlin did it
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Steven Lewis examines how Canada can and should learn from Australia’s success in controlling the coronavirus, while Robert Danich writes that conservative governments need to learn that they have responsibility for social health and well-being rather than pointing the finger at individuals.
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: Was Pierre Poilievre Breathing Too Hard on Erin O’Toole’s Neck?
The Tories like nothing so much as eating their dead – after they’ve knifed them in the back. Diefenbaker was felled from within. So was Joe Clark. Andrew Scheer, ditto. Now it’s Erin O’Toole’s neck on the line. I’m sensing that he doesn’t want to go the way of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Caroline Chen discusses why opening restaurants and other indoor venues which involve prolonged contact is the worst possible choice if one wants to contain the spread of COVID-19. – Michal Rozworski argues that we shouldn’t see the relief efforts needed in the wake
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: Repugs Lose 56-44. Impeachment Trial is Constitutional.
The good news is that the Dems carried the day on the challenge to the constitutionality of impeaching a president after he has left office. The bad news is that it was a 56-44 vote. That will likely hold up on the vote of whether to convict or acquit
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: One in Five. The Global Death Toll of Fossil Energy.
A study of global deaths in 2018 found that 8.7 million resulted from fossil fuel pollution. Researchers contend that amounts to one in five deaths that year. The findings are eye-opening. East Asia has the worst results with some 30% of deaths in people over 14 apparently resulted from fossil
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: This is a Constitutional question, a matter of law. Why is it not before the court?
The Senators hearing the case for impeachment of Donald Trump are jurors. They’ve been sworn in as jurors. Ordinarily jurors decide issues of fact. Where there are disputed issues of law those are ordinarily the remit of the courts. Trump’s defence seems to be that it is unconstitutional for
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: Herd Immunity a Pipe Dream?
With the proliferation of Covid variants, the goal of achieving herd immunity may be unrealistic. The South African strain of the virus has shown the AstraZeneca and NovoVax vaccines to be in the 60 per cent efficacy range, far below their effectiveness on what I now call Covid-Classic. The
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Angela Stewart interviews Malgorzata Gasperowicz about the potential for Alberta to eradicate COVID-19 with a seven-week shutdown, rather than letting new and more dangerous variants run rampant in the months before vaccines can be widely distributed. Jillian Horton observes that premiers who have
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Bill Blaikie discusses how our growing inequality and precarity is the direct result of harmful policy choices: By 1985 we were five years into the neo-liberal era brought on by the election of Margaret Thatcher in the UK and Ronald Reagan in
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: What’s Ailing the Neighbours and Why We Can’t Ignore It
America is in the throes of a malady that could cripple if not end the Republic. I have a sense of it and I expect you probably also sense it. “What it is ain’t exactly clear” to be sure but its presence is indisputable. Perhaps Washington Post columnist, Alyssa
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: It’s all over but the crying, I suppose.
It’s just another meme making the rounds of Facebook but I can’t get this one out of my head. It’s true. Even here in “tree hugger” country, British Columbia, our dwindling stock of majestic “old growth” trees isn’t safe. These trees weren’t safe during the very conservative BC Liberal governments
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – The Globe and Mail’s editorial board laments the choice of far too many provincial governments to sacrifice tens of thousands of lives rather than treating a pandemic with the seriousness and focus it deserves. Philip Pizzo, David Spiegel and Michelle Mello examine how
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