Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Jamey Keaten and Seth Borenstein report on the World Meteorological Association’s finding that we’ve just had the hottest summer in recorded history. And Chelsey Harvey highlights how the combination of extreme heat and other climate calamities looks to be a harbinger of worse
Continue readingTag: john ibbitson
Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Iglika Ivanova examines who has lost jobs to COVID-19, and who needs public support to be able to return to the workforce. Tara Deschamps reports on an RBC study showing women’s participation in the workforce has been set back three decades by
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: If You’re Pouring Gasoline On the Fire, Don’t Pretend You’re Fighting the Flames.
It’s funny, with the October elections nearing, how concerned the Conservatives and Liberals are becoming about climate change or, at least, the flooding that has ravaged eastern Canada and the maritimes. Oh they’re all eco-warriors now. So precious. It might be inspirational if they weren’t such petro-pimps, eager to flood
Continue readingMontreal Simon: The Con Media’s Shameful Attempt to Shame the Liberals
As we all know the Con media's assault on Justin Trudeau during his trip to India was something to behold.Relentless, vicious, and since most of the Con media covered it from Ottawa and Toronto, abysmally ignorant of what was really going on in India.And hyped to the point of absurdity. But
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Leadership 2017 Links
The latest from the federal NDP’s leadership campaign as the first voting window remains open. – Power & Politics and the Toronto Star have each posted new summaries of the candidates and their plans. Gloria Galloway reports on Charlie Angus’ campaign as focusing on taking the NDP back to its
Continue readingMontreal Simon: John Ibbitson’s Obscene Ode to Andrew Scheer
I realize that the Globe writer John Ibbitson has written some rotten columns before, most of them in praise of Stephen Harper.And I realize he works for a newspaper that somehow managed to endorse the Cons, if not Harper, in the last election.Which was of course somewhere between absurdity, and insanity.And after
Continue readingMontreal Simon: John Ibbotson’s Scary Journey Into Harper’s Head
Ten days ago the Globe writer John Ibbotson was awarded the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing, for his book Stephen Harper.With the jury praising him for managing to "put us inside Harper’s head during some of the most critical mom…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: How to create warped incentives
Shorter John Ibbitson: The NDP is being entirely responsible in preparing for the possible outcomes of the next federal election, and must be punished for it.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On absolutism
Shorter John Ibbitson: The Very Serious People hereby demand that Thomas Mulcair give a definitive yes-or-no answer on all possible trade agreements before we even know what’s in them.
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: In Which John Ibbitson Continues His Audition For A Senate Seat
But he’d better hurry. There is talk of regime change this October. Watch The Sunday Scrum as John consistently, stoutly and steadfastly defends Dear Leader at every turn while opining on matters such as cabinet departures, the Senate scandal involving Don Meredith, and Mr. Harper’s refusal to take questions from
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On consensus positions
I won’t break down in detail the bevy of reviews of the current position of Tom Mulcair and the federal NDP – including pieces by Bruce Stewart, John Ibbitson and John Geddes. But it’s worth highlighting the areas where I’d see no need to challenge the consensus reflected in those
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – John Ibbitson reports that the Cons’ obvious priorities have finally been made explicit: as far as they’re concerned, the sole purpose of international diplomacy is to serve the corporate sector. And Ian Smillie documents how the Cons hijacked Canada’s foreign aid program (while
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Polishing a … tarnished reputation: the ‘National Newspaper’ as Stephen Harper’s pathetic enabler
Your blogger with Rev. Bill Phipps, former United Church of Canada moderator and, in 2002, the NDP’s challenger to Stephen Harper. Below: Harper doubters Andrew Coyne and Tim Harper. “The subject who is truly loyal to the Chief Magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures.” – Junius, published
Continue readingA Different Point of View....: Business journalists go on the attack; demonize Atlantic seasonal workers
National business journalists and columnists have bought into Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s demeaning view that folks in the Atlantic region are backward and have a defeatist attitude. Framed in disrespectful language, they’re promoting untested economic ideas that, if adopted, would seriously damage the economy – and the people – of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Tabatha Southey rightly turns Brad Trost into a poster boy for the Harper Cons’ deliberate aversion to critical self-evaluation: We shouldn’t be too quick to judge. Let’s instead take a cue from Conservative MP Brad Trost, who, when questioned regarding the calls, said,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – While we may sometimes lose track of the continuing differences between Canadian politics and those in the U.S., here’s a reminder of how we’re familiar with a far wider and more progressive range of public policy choices: while we’ve seen plenty of discussion
Continue readingPolitics and Entertainment: The citizen as consumer, as a mere "marketing target."
http://tinyurl.com/9nu7j9c Under a neoliberal regime such as ours, anything – including your very soul – can be commodified. (Ask those members of the evangelical church to which OGL apparently belongs.) The very concept of consumer assumes a market. Yet we’ve naturalized the concept so unconsciously no one questions the term
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Justin Trudeau & The Ibbitson Question: Lessons from George Lakoff
John Ibbitson questions whether Canadians will follow the values that Justin Trudeau represents, and concludes that there is much mushiness which bodes ill for the Liberal Party under the younger Trudeau: The Ibbitson Question Both political strategist Warren Kinsella (Fight the Right) and former journalist Paul Adams (Power Trap) have
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – On the anniversary of Jack Layton’s death, Tim Harper points out how far the NDP has come in just a year, while Brian Topp highlights where the party still needs to go: (W)hat to do about the federal government’s crisis of relevance? Recent
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Evening Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Robyn Allan notes that there’s plenty of weakness in Christy Clark’s position on the Gateway pipeline. But Barbara Yaffe writes that Clark has little choice but to stick to at least the requests she’s made so far – and Vaughn Palmer points
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