Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Francesco Pierri et al. study the roots of COVID-19 vaccine denialism, with misinformation becoming more and more prevalent as the pandemic continues. And David Climenhaga discusses how Alberta (and many other Canadian provinces) are taking a new step in pandemic denialism by planning
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Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Julia Doubleday writes that we shouldn’t accept spin from any party which attempts to minimize the unacceptable dangers of exposing children to a virus known to cause lasting damage to people’s immune systems, while Terry Pender reports on the growing recognition that COVID-19 does just
Continue readingNorthern Currents –: Right-wing news outlet “True North” posts misleading vaccination statistics
True North, a conservative-leaning news site, has published a highly misleading article that seems to attempt to undermine vaccine effectiveness. It’s actually kind of shocking how bad it is. Putting True North’s own numbers into context tells an entirely different story than the story its readers have heard. According to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Stephen Long writes that one of the key economic symptoms of the coronavirus pandemic has been to push people into underemployment. And CBC Radio examines how people with disabilities have been left out of both conversations as to how to respond to COVID-19,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: That rumble you hear is the sound of the Shock Doctrine artillery softening up Alberta for austerity on steroids
In trench warfare, before the shock troops go over the top, the artillery softens up the defenders with a barrage at the point of the attack. In the midst of a great struggle with a mysterious coronavirus that threatens all mankind, we are being subjected to such a barrage by
Continue readingIn-Sights: Corporate welfare
Despite newspapers being longtime supporters of Fraser Institute teachings that call for reduced public spending, they are now more than happy to get in line for corporate welfare. That’s not surprising. While many Canadian journalists are principled professionals, rather few of their employers share that virtue.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Appointment of conservative economist Jack Mintz to head Jason Kenney’s latest economic panel is not a good augury for Alberta
Come into my office, Alberta, and sit down. I’m sorry to have to tell you that your prognosis is not good. I’m not talking about coronavirus. That will be painful, but you’re strong and young and I’m confident you could survive coronavirus … Alberta Premier Jason Kenney (Photo: David J.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The ‘War Room’ finally launches: $30-million and all we got was this lousy website?
The mighty voice of Alberta’s beleaguered oil industry, the long promised and much-touted $30-million “Energy War Room,” stumbled out of the starting gate yesterday after a news conference in Calgary graced by the presence of Premier Jason Kenney and Energy Minister Sonya Savage. At least, as the self-described purveyor of
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Regardless of Tyler Shandro’s promises, private clinics won’t shorten surgical wait times — they’ll make them longer
Using private medical clinics to remedy long wait times for surgeries in Alberta’s public health care system, as the United Conservative Party Government says it expects to do, is about as likely to work as treating iron-poor blood by attaching blood-sucking leeches to patients’ arms and legs. That is to
Continue readingAlberta Politics: What’s with the United Conservative Party’s emerging fury at nurses, of all people?
What’s with the sudden hate on for nurses by United Conservative Party supporters? It comes from somewhere. Your average UCP internet troll doesn’t just come up with this stuff on his – or occasionally her – own. The traditional Conservative approach to attacking nurses and other predominantly public and female
Continue readingAlberta Politics: ‘How can we help you bust your union?’ Alberta Government launches ‘employee support program’
The Government of Alberta launched its promised “Employee Labour Relations Support Program” yesterday. Apparently they’ll not only tell you how to certify a union, they’ll tell you how to decertify one too! Busting a union used to be easier back in the days of the old Progressive Conservatives, who weren’t
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Where’s the crisis austerity is supposed to fix? Not necessarily in the numbers the government’s consultant crunched
In the decade between 2008 and last year, the number of civil servants in Alberta on a per capita basis fell by 5 per cent. In the same period, Alberta’s population grew by almost 20 per cent. I know, I know, that isn’t what your heard. You certainly didn’t read
Continue readingAlberta Politics: ‘Blue-Ribbon Panel’ report sets stage for full-blown austerity, private health care, soaring tuition and much more
The recommendations of the Kenney Government’s “blue-ribbon panel” on Alberta’s finances yesterday went further over the top than you’d even have expected from a report ginned up by a couple of Fraser Institute ringers, a former bank president, and a few additional followers of the government’s low-tax, market-fundamentalist ideology. As
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Why Canadian media won’t call post-Brexit protests ‘pro-democracy demonstrations’
If there are riots in Britain after the hard Brexit Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Conservative Party cronies have scheduled for Halloween, will mainstream media in Canada describe them as “pro-democracy demonstrations” as they do when similar violent outbursts take place nowadays in Hong Kong or Moscow? On the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Larry Elliott writes that a corporate-centred model of globalization is unlikely to survive the Trump regime. And Jeff Spross proposes an alternative which allows for people to be free and capital to be controlled, rather than the other way around. – But
Continue readingIn-Sights: Taxes buy civilization
Neoliberalism has brought us extreme concentrations of wealth and power and a society governed by and for the rich. The Guardian reports America’s three wealthiest billionaires—Bezos, Gates and Buffett—have as much wealth as the bottom half of the US population combined. Funders—like the American Koch brothers and Fraser Institute directors
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Steven Greenhouse discusses how the U.S.’ economy is rigged against workers. And Eric Levitz writes that Donald Trump’s giveaway to the rich worked only as a scam against the rest of the country. – Matthew Townsend and Scott Lanman point out that minimum
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Regardless of Jason Kenney’s tweets, the Corporate Mapping Project is uncovering data of value to citizens
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has a well-known propensity to blame Justin Trudeau for things that were done by Stephen Harper, as the debate over who is responsible for the time it’s taken to complete the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project nicely illustrates. So condemning Liberal Prime Minister Trudeau for the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Corporate Mapping Project names top fossil-fuel emitters, enablers and legitimators, unlocks online database
“The fossil fuel industry … is the biggest obstacle to real action on climate change today,” says the co-director of the Corporate Mapping Project, which this morning published an eye-opening list of the 50 most influential players in the industry and a publicly accessible database with information on more than
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – PressProgress offers its annual reminder not to be taken in by the Fraser Institute’s anti-tax spin. And Robert Frank reports that support for a more fair tax system in the U.S. extends even to millionaires, a majority of whom approve of a
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