Assorted content for your weekend reading. – James Baxter discusses why there’s no reason to buy into the Harper Cons’ fearmongering in the first place: Let’s accept a basic truth: There’s only so much money we’re willing to ‘invest’ in having the government to protect us from bad things and, when you
Continue readingTag: heather mallick
Politics and its Discontents: Herr Harper, Who Is Your Goebbels?
Having returned from our Cuban sojourn last evening, I have not yet had time to get caught up on the Canadian political scene, but this item by Heather Mallick deconstructing one of Herr Harper’s recent 24/Seven productions caught my eye. Its martial music, military imagery and depiction of Dear leader’s
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Heather Mallick and Linda McQuaig both weigh in on the connection between income splitting and the Cons’ plans for social engineering. And Scott Clark and Peter DeVries point out that a giveaway to wealthy families is as indefensible from an economic standpoint
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Michael Rozworski observes that the NDP’s $15 per day national child care plan has irritated all the right people – while still leaving ample room for improvement in the long run once the first pieces are in place. And PressProgress notes that the
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Stephen Harper Goes After the Media and the Bigot Vote
As you know I am increasingly concerned about Stephen Harper's state of mind. Because it's pretty clear to me that he is showing signs of cracking under the strain of all those bad polls, and is becoming even more aggressive. Or even crazier.For in just a few days he has managed
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A New Addition To The Harper Enemies List
But then again, no surprises here, except that it is being leveraged into a fundraising appeal. But it is a bit rich, isn’t it, that given their expertise in the area, the Harper cabal should be carping about disgusting personal attacks? Is hypocrisy too obvious a word? Recommend this Post
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Deirdre Fulton discusses the UN’s 2014 Human Development Report, featuring recognition that precarious jobs and vulnerable workers are all too often the norm regardless of a country’s level of development or high-end wealth. And as Dylan Matthews points out (h/t to David Atkins),
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: To dream fondly of the day when ads haunt our dreams
Heather Mallick’s column about the public’s willingness to sell out to the corporate sector for cheap unfortunately meanders off on a few too many tangents before reaching much of a point. But even if she’d connected with a truly incisive take, snark has nothing on Terence Corcoran – who goes
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: CBC’s The Current: The Ethics Of Journalists And Paid Speaking Engagements
While I and others have written about Rex Murphy’s close relationship to the oil industry, a relationship that appears to be in direct conflict with his position at the CBC, Peter Mansbridge has also been embroiled in controversy recently because of a speech he give to the Canadian Association of
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Heather Mallick And The Climate Of Fear
Toronto Star columnist Heather Mallick has a lacerating assessment this morning of the political landscape we now inhabit, thanks to the machinations of the Harper cabal. Owen, over at Norther Reflections, has a post on her piece that is well-worth reading. I shall only add this from her column: What
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
This and that for your mid-week reading. – Erin Weir posts the statement of a 70-strong (and growing) list of Canadian economists opposed to austerity. Heather Mallick frames the latest Con budget as yet another example of their using personal cruelty as a governing philosophy, while the Star’s editorial board
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Ed Broadbent comments on Parliament’s review of inequality in Canada: In a more encouraging vein, the majority report cautiously endorses some positive proposals. Given stated support from both of the opposition parties, these could, and should, move to the top of the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Heather Mallick discusses what Canada stands to lose as Canada Post is made both more expensive and less functional. Ethan Cox suggests that what’s missing from Canada Post is a postal bank – which makes postal services elsewhere both more profitable, and more
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Your Saturday Smile
This morning in her column contrasting Justin Trudeau and Stephen Harper, The Star’s Heather Mallick offers this hilarious observation: I am only now recovering from the photo of Harper posing in a red hoodie with Inuit rangers who look normal, even attractive, in a red hoodie, but Harper is playing
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: On Bad Days And Defiance
Yesterday was not a good day for me. First, I awoke to read about the government raid on the Guardian office resulting in the destruction of computers containing some of the material leaked by Edward Snowden on illegal state surveillance. Eerily reminiscent of the U.S. Department of Justice raid on
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Heroes and Villains
There is little doubt in my mind that the economic chaos defining the lives of millions of people is intentional, not just so their labour can be exploited as cheaply as possible, but also because desperate citizens make for compliant and disciplined drones. Historically, it has usually been thus, with
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: This Is What Happens To Canada When Our Politicians Betray Us
We become a nation to be sported with: On a slightly more serious note, Heather Mallick offers her thoughts: Rob Ford: Quandary incarnate. A desperate futile we’re-done-here. A Mt. Edith Cavell of disappointment. A mind so thick that it makes light rays go bendy. The people you pay to bury
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Peter Gillespie discusses the problems with tax cheats (and the overseas tax havens which encourage them): Multinational corporations and banking and financial institutions routinely use tax havens to lower or eliminate their tax obligations, avoid regulation, and shield themselves from liability. Tax havens
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Daniel Wilson discusses how Stephen Harper’s antipathy toward First Nations is making a failure of his time in office: On the global stage, he stood almost alone in opposition to 144 other countries in voting against the United Nations Declaration on the Rights
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: What Fools These Mortals Be
The title of this post, taken from Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, hardly qualifies as a startling insight. Nonetheless, after reading two columns in this morning’s Star, I couldn’t help but reflect on the mass of contradictions that we are. It has likely always been thus, but stands in especially sharp
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