Assorted content to end your week. – Richard Wilkinson, Kate Pickett and Wanda Wyporska neatly summarize the insidious social effects of inequality: (I)nequality is socially divisive, making status more important and strengthening the view that some people are worth more than others. As we judge each other more by status,
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Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Richard Partington discusses the rise of inequality and some of the options to combat it. And PressProgress points out the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s conclusion that the NDP’s plan for a wealth tax can turn money currently being hoarded by the ultra-rich into tens
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Damian Carrington reports on the Global Commission on Adaptation’s research showing that we’re woefully unprepared for catastrophic climate change – and that prevention today will far more than pay off in the future (except for those who consider climate apartheid to be
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Derrick O’Keefe highlights how Canada’s election would look if coverage focused on the issues which feature strong public support, rather than the two painfully unappealing perceived front-runners who ignore them: (T)he Ipsos poll results released Thursday…show an enormous potential for class-based demands
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Giri Savaraman and Jim Stanford point out the importance of a more collaborative and inclusive economy, even as Australia’s right-wing government pushes in the opposite direction: The problem has not been an absence of productivity growth: our productivity can always be improved, but
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Ian Welsh discusses the reality as to how economic decisions are made – and how we’ve allowed corporate control to remain in place even after it’s failed even on its own terms: All systems have to do only one thing: whatever is
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Kate Aronoff asks how much destruction is needed before we’ll start taking climate change seriously – though the answer at this point looks to be that no amount of damage will be enough to move a substantial number of politicians off their insistence
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Uh, Uh. Trudeau Enthusiasts Won’t Like This
Start at the 1:40 mark to see what I mean. To whet your appetite, here are some viewer comments: What an awesome way to drop that Saudi Arabia thing. Hasan’s show just keeps getting better and better. The look on his face after that question! He thought they were gonna
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Like a Good Horror Film?
Most terrifying thing I’ve seen: We’re headed for 10 degrees in the next 20-30 years, and we will hit human extinction at 4 degrees?? Do I even bother to go to work today?? We’ve missed the window that could allow a gentle reversal. The only solution, he says, is to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – David Lazarus writes about the fundamental dishonesty needed to keep purveying trickle-down spin in the face of all evidence. And Richard Rubin discusses how U.S. Democrats are having a serious discussion about the merits of progressive income and wealth taxes – even
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Greg Wilpert interviews Julia Wolfe about the contract between soaring incomes for CEOs, and stagnant ones for workers. And David Cooper observes that everybody benefits from a fair minimum wage. – Christopher Cheung points out that the presence – or absence – of
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Why We Won’t Sufficate
…even if the entire rainforest burns down: Hank Green explains it here in just four minutes:
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Liaquat Ahamed writes about the pattern of wealth concentrating in the absence of a countervailing force – and the need for a political response. Linda McQuaig discusses how the media largely ignores the eminently popular prospect of raising taxes on the people
Continue readingMontreal Simon: The Amazing Voyage of Greta Thunberg
I greatly admire Greta Thunberg the Swedish teenager who has mobilized millions of young people to fight climate change.And as you probably know I love sailing.So needless to say I really love this story.Read more ยป
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Mann’s Madhouse Effect
Michael Mann recently tweeted this: It’s dumb luck that I chanced to do just that! This book a comprehensive exploration of the issues mixed with clear examples and Tom Toles’s cartoons. It could easily be used as a climate change primer in a high school or middle school, and it
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – John Nichols interviews Bernie Sanders about the importance of resurrecting the principle of economic rights. Gallup examines how the American public is again recognizing the value of unions. And Simon Goodley writes about the positive effects of shortening the work week to 4
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Paul Krugman writes about the U.S. Republicans’ new complaint of evil eye economics – though it shouldn’t come as much surprise that people who treat the economy as nothing more than a confidence game would object to anybody pointing out how the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On mixed signals
Cam argues that the Libs’ latest messaging on carbon pricing is a mistake in the sense of a political gaffe. And watching only the headlines today, that take would appear to be borne out. But I’ll respond that while a posture of studied ambiguity about carbon pricing may represent an
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Peter Wade reports on new polling showing that American voters remain angry about a political system which benefits a privileged few at the expense of everybody else. Jake Johnson reports on Bernie Sanders’ message that it’s time for workers to win the class
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Nathaniel Rich’s Losing Earth
This is a quick read outlining the history of the efforts to do something to slow down fossil fuel use. Everything we know now about climate change, pretty much, we knew with great certainty forty years ago, in 1979. “The climate scientist James Hansen has called a 2-degree warming ‘a
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