Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Katharine Wu writes that contrary to the continued attempt by right-wing talking heads to equate mass viral transmission with immunity, we can’t assume that the spread of the Omicron COVID strain will offer substantial protection from future infection. Kayla Rosen reports on new
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Accidental Deliberations: Musical interlude
Cowboy Junkies – White Sail
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: The Booster Pays Off
The US Centers for Disease Control report that the Pfizer and Moderna boosters are paying off. The extra doses are 90 percent effective against hospitalization with the variant, the agency reported. Booster shots also reduced the likelihood of a visit to an emergency department or urgent care clinic. The
Continue readingThe Cracked Crystal Ball II: Kenney Is On The Right Track?
So, according to Ken Boessenkool, we should congratulate Jason Kenney for “being on the right track“. I get it – Ken’s a conservative organizer, and he’s going to think that Klein’s tenure was some kind of high point. It wasn’t, and I think we all know that – we’ve spent
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Claire Horwell highlights how masking and other continued public health measures to rein in spread to the extent possible are the only way to avoid catastrophic results from the Omicron wave. Mickey Djuric reports on leaked modelling reaching the same conclusion based on
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: Mind Blowing. MoS Takes the Plunge.
A subscription to Google Alerts is not for the faint-hearted. Untreated, it can lead to chronic depression. I’ve avoided it for three weeks, my New Year’s resolution. Until today. I just had to peek under the carpet. Here’s what I found waiting for me: From The Guardian. In Norway, the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – David Moscrop writes about the need for public policy which remedies inequality rather than exacerbating it – while recognizing that we’re falling painfully short in response to COVID. Max Kozlov highlights how immune evasion, not a higher viral load, seems to be
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: Climate Departure? Too Soon to Say.
I wrote to Camilo Mora asking if the bizarre severe weather events that whipsawed British Columbia in 2021 evidenced the onset of what he termed “climate departure.” About nine years ago Mora and his team of analysts from his climate lab at the University of Hawaii digested hundreds of research
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: Trump Wanted a Wall. Now He’s Run Headlong Into One.
Donald Trump has exhausted his last chance to block the release of his records to a Congressional committee investigating the January 6 insurrection. After losing to a unanimous judgment of an appeal court, Trump tried his luck with the Supreme Court but even with that stacked deck he couldn’t prevail.
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: Good News. Asia Loves Jellyfish.
For most of the world the influx of jellyfish in local waters has become a real problem. Like most marine life, jellyfish are migrating into waters once too cold for their liking. For years, swarms of jellyfish have appeared off the coast of Ireland where they attack fish farms,
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: Too Cool for School. Jordan Peterson Ditches University of Toronto.
Enough sour grapes to make cheap wine. Jordan Peterson has resigned his position as a tenured professor at the University of Toronto but he’s not bowing out gracefully. I can’t recite most of this shit so I’ll leave you to read it for yourself. In a nutshell, he’s just too
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: If They Can’t Handle a Pandemic, They’ll Never Tackle Our Real Problems
Two years and five waves reveal a dangerous pattern in the competence of Canada’s provincial and federal governments as they struggle to balance the economy with the emergency. At first, in the opening months of 2000, it was a “one and done” problem. We go into lockdown, Covid takes the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Cory Neudorf asks that Saskatchewan not play Russian roulette with the Omicron COVID variant. Rahul Suryawanshi et al. find that any theory of hoping for protection through infection is as foolish now as ever, since Omicron itself is limited in the immunity it
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Night Cat Blogging
Downturned cats.
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: Trump’s Stacked Supreme Court Emboldens the Fossil Fuelers
America’s fossil energy giants and their political minions have become really scrappy in their decades old fight to continue destroying our world. No longer do they seem to fear either public outrage or their nation’s now stacked Supreme Court. Exxon Mobile, the owner of Canada’s Imperial Oil/Esso, says its climate
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: A Funny Thing Happened on Thom Hartmann’s Radio Show
Progressive journalist and radio show host, Thom Hartmann, thought he’d dodged a bullet when he skirted a listener’s question whether Donald Trump is the Antichrist. Then his switchboard was flooded with others asking the very same question. That first caller clearly hit a nerve. It’s a fascinating question, however,
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: I Know You Don’t Want to Hear This. I’ll Keep It Brief.
How did we screw up this planet, our one and only, so thoroughly in just one lifetime? No, this isn’t about greenhouse gases or global warming. It’s about a new study looking at chemical contamination, a different sort of tipping point. From The Guardian: The study concludes that chemical pollution
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Paul Kuodi et al. find some hopeful evidence that vaccinations may help to prevent long COVID symptoms as well as more acute ones. Nili Kaplan-Myrth rightly questions why safety is being treated as a privilege to be withheld from vulnerable people. And
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: Andrew Nikiforuk Takes Jordan Peterson to the Woodshed for a Damn Good Thrashing
I’m sure that quite a few of us have had our fill of the rightwing dandy and pompous git, Jordan Peterson. Recently JP attempted to revive his flagging celebrity with an op-ed in, where else, the National Post, “Open the damn country up, before Canadians wreck something we can’t
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib Mk. II: "Social Murder" – How the Wealthy and Politically Connected are Engineering Ecological Collapse
Why do our governments, elected to office by ordinary citizens, abet those who would harm us? Chris Hedges accuses them of “social murder.” It’s mass murder. The global catastrophe that awaits us, already baked into the ecosystem from the failure to curb the use of fossil fuels and animal
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