Miscellaneous material to end your weekend. – Chris Selley rightly points out that for all the damage the Cons can do in a term of majority government, we shouldn’t overstate how much of it is irreversible. And more importantly, while it’s well worth putting time and effort into defending the
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Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Brian Jones writes that we’re well on our way to an only slightly-sanitized version of feudalism: According to news reports this week, the average annual income of the Top 100 CEOs is $8.4 million. That’s less than is paid to superstar puckster Sidney
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review: November 15, 2011
Much of Tuesday, November 15 was spent discussing C-13, the Cons’ budget implementation bill. And with a giant and scattered omnibus bill came a Commons debate to match. The Big Issue The main topic of debate on the Cons’ budget was once again their series of tax credits, with the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Frances Russell criticizes the Cons’ latest attempts to stifle parliamentary accountability. And the Citizen can only scoff at Tony Clement’s claim to be an advocate for open government: What matters is whether government makes information available. The statistics from access-to-information requests suggest
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, responding to plenty of talk about the rising West with a look at the challenges and decisions we’re facing as a region. For sources and further reading, the column refers to…– Data on price and quantity of goods from Stephen Gordon– B.C. economic comparison from the now-defunct Progress Board
Continue readingHellberta: The Great Oil War [Chapter 2] : Iran
In chapter 1 of what now may be considered the beginnings of a World-War III we discussed what was then the active military action against Libya. We covered economic hitmen and the typical approach taken by western nations to overthrow or at least get nations to play along with their game. Of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Assorted content to start your week. – Dr. Dawg asks some rather important questions about whether we think our current checks and balances are enough to rein in the Harper Cons: The lesson of the first story is, for me, how quickly the “normal” can be disrupted, our country taking
Continue readingRed Tory v.3.0.3: Fox News Kills Ron Paul
Not literally, of course… but as you can see from nipped and tucked Scientoligist Greta Van Susteren’s year-end look back at the race to become the Republican presidential nominee, there is not ONE single mention of Ron Paul in the entire 7½ minutes of video. Why, it’s as if Fox
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Jeffrey Simpson manages to write an entire column on important political developments he managed to miss in 2011 without uttering the words “NDP” (or any member thereof). Which surely looks like an early nominee as a continued blind spot in 2012. – Peter
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review: November 4, 2011
Friday, November 4 saw another day of spirited question period debate on the economy. But for once, the main theme was total cooperation – even if much of the day was spent lamenting its absence. The Big Issue The main bill up for debate was the Cons’ legislation dealing with
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review: November 3, 2011
Thursday, November 3 saw another day devoted largely to the Cons’ seat reallocation bill and associated motion to shut down debate. But perhaps more important was a stark set of contrasts on the economy which the Cons now seem to be trying to undo. The Big Issue Peter Julian and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
This and that for your weekend reading. – Thomas Walkom tries to be optimistic about the year ahead, and likely settles on the best reason for hope that Canada’s politics will see some change for the better: Canada, like Australia and Brazil, is getting by on sales of raw materials
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your week. – If there’s a more accurate description of the Cons’ entire political strategy than “taking advantage of the prejudice that’s already there”, I haven’t heard it yet. And Chris Lawson is rightly frustrated that Canadian politics are being dominated by such cynical and destructive
Continue readingThe Happy Wanderer: Compromise!?
Obama wants to push the so called compromise of extending the payroll tax cuts by another 2 years. If this is considered a compromise it a joke. Because first both sides for the most part agree with the idea, but yet there was still a lot of fighting over the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Room for progressivity
Yes, I know some commentators are treating the latest from Kevin Milligan et al. as somehow proving a point that raising high-income tax levels won’t accomplish anything. But I’d think one has to strain rather hard to draw such an interpretation from a column that includes the following: What might
Continue readingeaves.ca: Not Brain Candy: A Review of The Information Diet by Clay Johnson
My body no longer kills me when I come back from the gym. However, I had a moment of total humiliation today: theoretically my ideal body weight is 172 pounds and I weigh 153 Ibs. The woman at the gym calibrated my fat/water/meat/bone ratios, made an inward gasp and
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: One. Stop Subsidizing Fossil Fuels
Two. Put a price on carbon. These are two easy things to do in legislation which will have the crucial effect of curbing air pollution. If the market is the God of the modern political power brokers, then the market has to contain the solution to climate change. We have
Continue readingLeDaro: Barack Obama: Will He Be Re-Elected?
Will Barack Obama’s foreign policy in Egypt and Libya help him or hurt him? I don’t want to defend Hosni Mubarak here, but he was a friend to the west, now it appears that extreme religious elements are taking over the country. With Libya, Gaddafi was becoming more friendly towards
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Leadership 2012 – Policy Roundup 2
Following up on my earlier post, let’s take a quick look at the policy proposals that have been unveiled by NDP leadership candidates over the last couple of weeks. – Niki Ashton’s plan for a more inclusive economy includes plenty of noteworthy ideas, including a direct attack on structural discrimination
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – If you’re only going to read one analytic take on the NDP leadership campaign, make it Alice’s – featuring this take on Thomas Mulcair’s strategy in cultivating later-ballot support: I’m fairly sure I was privy to the exchange between Paul Wells and “Mulcair
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