From a great interview on Alter.net – “LP: Some say that if we redistribute income in a more equitable way, people won’t want to work as hard. Is that true? What happens to our motivation to work when things are so inequitable? JS: One of the myths that I try
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DeSmogBlog: Bloomberg Stunner: How Chesapeake Energy Paid Less Than a 1% Tax Rate On $5.5 Billion in Profits
chesapeake-energy.jpg Chesapeake Energy, a company that is no stranger to financial scandals, has found itself on the front page of the financial papers again. This time, the subject is taxes. Or how Chesapeake barely pays them. Over its 23-year history, Chesapeake Energy, the second largest producer of natural gas
Continue readingPaulitical Satire: Home For Rent – Paulitical Needs a new Place to Live!
So, you may have noticed that blogs posts have become a little more sporadic over the past few weeks here on your favourite corner of the internet. Sadly my time has been sucked away by something that is all consuming: looking for a place to live. Specifically, a new home
Continue readingPaulitical Satire: Co-Operatives Rock! Follow Friday – Dr. David Coletto
So, for this week’s follow Friday post, I’m going to talk about a poll from the firm of one of my very best friends: the brilliant and handsome Dr. David Coletto, at Abacus Data.I’ve been waiting a long time to post a poll from David J. (as we like to
Continue readingSong of the Watermelon: On Growth and Its Limits
George Monbiot offers a fascinating insight in the wake of last week’s United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in Rio de Janeiro. While rightly deriding the declaration adopted by world leaders for containing little more than meaningless fluff, he notes an evolution in diplomatic language regarding the environment over
Continue readingNorthern Insight: History’s mistakes repeated
A Manifesto for Economic Sense, Paul Krugman, Princeton University, and Richard Layard, LSE Centre for Economic Performance “More than four years after the financial crisis began, the world’s major advanced economies remain deeply depressed, in a scene all too reminiscent of the 1930s. And the reason is simple: we are
Continue readingNunc Scio: Yes, there are more than one: David Harvey’s “The Crises of Capitalism”
An incisive analysis of the financial crisis. I’m sure many of you will disagree, but this is not a perspective that can be easily dismissed.
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Government and Human Wretchedness
What is government if not a living reminder of our human wretchedness, of the fall made secular, of the post-lapsarian world and the prison house of procedure and law that outlines and structures our existence? Our political institutions are decorated with the heritage of Christianity and Western civilization, and no
Continue readingelementalpresent: How to Eliminate Tuition Fees (and do it right)
Quebec student group CLASSE has come forward with an offer of what it would take to end their almost four-month strike: the elimination of tuition fees by 2016. The plan is based on taxing banks, starting at 0.14 per cent per cent this year, and rising to 0.7 per cent
Continue readingearthgauge: Earthgauge Radio May 24 2012: Special program on Canada’s changing North
Download: earthgaugeradio-podcast-may24-2012-arctic-special.mp3 On Earthgauge Radio this week, we’re taking a look at issues facing Canada’s rapidly changing northern regions. I have three interviews for you on today’s special show: Mary Simon, President of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK), the national organization representing Inuit Ed Struzik, author of The Big Thaw: Travels
Continue readingFive of Five: Shen Yung And Not Your Father’s PC Party
The Shen Young Performing Arts troupe recently had their Alberta 2013 performance dates thrown into question when the Alberta Government revoked an agreement to use the Jubilee Auditoriums in Edmonton and Calgary. The troupe celebrates Chinese Culture in a spectacular show of music and dance. In their own words: Based
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: How Dare You Drones Resist?!
It is truly stunning to see how the elites react when people dare speak out against “austerity” – that is, to squeeze even more profits out of workers, students, and citizens in general. Almost as appalling is the way that the corporate media (and often the CBC) follow the party
Continue readingPaulitical Satire: Buying Local – Movie Monday
So, I’m driving from Winnipeg to Toronto this long weekend and am currently writing this from a hotel in Sault Ste. Marie. But that doesn’t mean you don’t get your Movie Monday! Our friend William Matthews over at Digital Footprint has put something great together for you again, as usual
Continue readingelementalpresent: The Real Culture of Dependency: In Defense of Atlantic Canada
This post is co-authored with Brian Foster “Is the EI system making it more attractive to not work?” That’s the (attempt at) thought-provoking (or fire-stoking) title of a recent National Post piece, written in the aftermath of Jim Flaherty’s intellectually lazy and socially irresponsible public musings on the psychological, voluntaristic reasons
Continue readingBlevkog: Nick Hanauer identifies the cart and the horse…
In his video that the TED series wouldn’t air as being ‘too political’, the venture capitalist Nick Hanauer points out the fallacy in the argument that the wealthy are ‘job creators’ and that taxing them provides hurts the economy. He argues that jobs are in fact the last thing a
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: F-35: Don’t Need No Stinking Accountability
I am genuinely concerned that there is no viable alternative party for conservatives in Canada who have, to this point, put all of their eggs into the Harper basket(case) Conservative Party of Canada. It’s staggering, the amount of intellectual fortitude (dishonesty) it takes to justify the crimes, the lying, the
Continue readingelementalpresent: Why work?
I was raised up believing I was somehow unique Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes, unique in each way you can see And now after some thinking, I’d say I’d rather be A functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me But I don’t, I don’t know what
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: We Must Force the Politicians to Go Post-Carbon
We need to leave the tarsands oil in the ground. We need an increasing carbon tax. We need to stop subsidizing carbon energy producers. We need public money invested in post-carbon energy. We need to do it now. I say all this, as does this NASA physicist: The science of
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Balkan Voices: Anti-Austerity Protests in Montenegro Heat Up
Translation and contextual information by Konstantin Kilibarda Montenegro has been ruled by the same political party, the Democratic Party of Socialist (DPS), for the past 23 years. Along with the government of Belarus, Montenegro has the dubious distinction of being the only country in Europe that hasn’t seen a change in
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Pride for the Maple Spring
I know it’s such an Alan Moore thing to say, but people shouldn’t be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people. We should be proud of students in Quebec for rejecting Charest’s offer. Here’s what I find interesting as a parent: We often strive to teach
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