Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Cassandra Willyard writes about the dangers of repeat COVID-19 infections. Kieren Williams reports on new research confirming how COVID-19 stiffens arterial walls, resulting in an increased risk of heart attacks and strokes. Erin Prater reports on Deborah Birx’s observation that COVID will almost
Continue readingTag: Don Braid
Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Eric Reinhart discusses the importance of approaching public health from a collective perspective, rather than presuming health is simply a matter of individual-level choices. And Michael Hiltzik highlights the usual combination of dishonesty and ignorance behind yet another set of talking points
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Dr. Christopher Applewhaite, Kerri Coombs, Dr. Susan Kuo and Protect Our Province BC respond to the reckless attempt to declare “back to normal” in the midst of an ongoing pandemic (with other severe illnesses also circulating at dangerous levels). And Lori Culbert reports
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Patrick Wood and Mary Louise Kelly write that we still need to be managing COVID risk budgets to avoid contributing more to community transmission than necessary. Helen Branswell discusses some lessons learned through the pandemic so far. And Morgan Lowrie reports on
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Don Braid discusses how Alberta’s health care system and polity are both collapsing under the weight of a UCP government which has utterly failed to protect either from readily-preventable damage. And Emily Pasiuk reports on Jason Kenney’s continued excuses for letting COVID-19 run
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Umair Haque discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic has been turned into a cash cow to be extended for profit, rather than a public health emergency to be ended for the sake of people’s safety. And Jay S. Kaufman notes that science alone can’t
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Nora Loreto points out the thousands of deaths known to have been caused by the spread of COVID-19 in Canadian hospitals – and the virtual certainty that the numbers available to date represent a significant undercount. Allan Massie discusses the spread of COVID-19
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Duncan Cameron discusses how right-wing nationalism is contributing to the destruction of our planet and the exploitation of people. Don Braid highlights how right-wing fringe politics and governance are damaging Alberta. And Murray Mandryk notes that Scott Moe’s reliance on an anti-science and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Don Braid calls out Jason Kenney for allowing his government’s MLAs and officials to gallivant around the world on vacation while demanding that the rest of Alberta stay home to stop the spread of COVID-19. James Keller reports on new research showing
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Fran Quigley interviews Joanne Goldblum and Colleen Shaddox about the entirely feasible steps which could be taken to eliminate poverty in the U.S.: FQ You devote a good deal of the book to reviewing the data and the stories that describe US
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta must learn to walk and chew gum at the same time, premier muses on the topic of energy and the environment
Jason Kenney may have missed it, but Lyndon Johnson’s famous comment about how certain people weren’t up to walking and chewing gum at the same time was an observation about their lack of intelligence, not their ability to get away with saying contradictory things at the same time. Alberta’s premier
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Diane Peters discusses how everybody has a stake in the safe reopening of schools this fall. And Masks4Canada is tracking cases of school infection across Canada while Support our Students does the same for Alberta in particular – though Don Braid rightly questions
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Order saying Alberta schools won’t have to enforce social distancing lands like a sucker punch
Whoever it was in the Alberta Government that decided it would be a good idea to risk springing the news on the public that COVID-19 social distancing rules won’t apply to classrooms just hours before schools reopen was seriously mistaken. The United Conservative Party government’s “near-normal” back-to-school scheme was already
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Andrew Nikiforuk writes about the public’s lack of familiarity with exponential growth which is proving lethal in its application to both COVID-19 and climate change. Jillian Horton points out the importance of continuing to treat the coronavirus as the emergency that it is
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jason Kenney calls Elizabeth May, Yves-François Blanchet ‘un-Canadian,’ accuses them of ‘blaming the victim’
Now that Premier Jason Kenney has declared it “un-Canadian” to say oil is dead, I wonder if it’s OK to admit Alberta’s fossil fuel industry is on the ropes? Probably. Mr. Kenney said as much himself in a remarkable rant yesterday directed at the Parliamentary Leader of the Bloc Québécois
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta COVID-19 cases rise to 74; UCP to push budget through; Jason Kenney visits the airport
Faced with the embarrassment of having to rewrite Alberta’s budget to acknowledge economic reality and public health necessity in the midst of a global pandemic or stick with one that fails to meet even that low bar and sets the stage for a attacks on public health care in the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: A Family Day toast to Don Getty, whose record is underwhelming, but whose best-known achievement was one for the ages
The winters around here are long. Even with social media Canadians need a February holiday. Come to think of it, given what the Internet has turned into in the few years since it arrived on the scene with such promise, we need a February long weekend even more than we
Continue readingAlberta Politics: This just in! Stable Reliable Liberal Democracy of Alberta suddenly adopts social license strategy for fossil fuel development
We interrupt this blog with an important bulletin from the Stable Reliable Liberal Democracy of Alberta! In an unexpected move, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has announced he will seek social license for new energy projects in the Canadian province. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). How unexpected was
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Peter MacKay may be One Candidate to Rule Them All — but can he save the party of Preston, Stockwell & Steve?
There are those who say we should be bracing ourselves for the return of President Steve. Say it ain’t so! Stephen Harper (Photo: Remy Steinegger, Creative Commons). We can expect know today if Stephen Harper is going to re-emerge to make a re-run to re-lead the Conservative Party of Canada
Continue readingAlberta Politics: NDP assails Alberta Energy War Room for ‘gross incompetence’ — but is that such a bad thing?
Having swallowed much of the United Conservative Party’s unlikely conspiracy theory about what supposedly ails the Alberta oilpatch during its term in office makes it harder for the NDP to convincingly criticize the Kenney Government’s $30-million-a-year “Energy War Room.” To give the Opposition its due, though, yesterday they tried. Alberta
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