Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Elizabeth Kolbert comments on the psychology of inequality, and particularly how the current trend in which a disproportionate share of gains goes to a small number of wealthy individuals produces no ultimate winners: As the relative-income model predicted, those who’d learned that they
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Accidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Jim Hightower writes about the importance of a popular movement to build the policy foundation for middle- and working-class prosperity. And Doug Henwood notes that the U.S. union movement managed to hold its ground in 2017. – Ellie May MacDonald points out
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Why Do We March?
Of the 120,000 people who attended the Women’s March in Canada, 10,000 marched in Alberta and 3,500 marched in Calgary. They were repeatedly asked, “Why do you march?” They replied they were concerned about equal pay, violence against women, protecting human rights, and ensuring the ugliness of Trumpism doesn’t seep
Continue readingMontreal Simon: The Con Media and the Religious Fanatics Go After Justin Trudeau
Ever since Justin Trudeau came to power, the Con media in this country has found any excuse to attack him like a pack of rabid zombies.But now they may have found the foulest excuse yet. Now they're accusing the son of the man who brought in our Charter of Rights of
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Whose side should Canada take if two NATO states start shooting at each other? Don’t laugh … it could happen
PHOTOS: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. If he looks ticked off, it’s probably because he is. (Photo: Kremlin.ru via Wikimedia Commons.) Hey! Don’t blame me if the only good royalty-free pictures of President Erdoğan come from Russia! Below: U.S. President and Commander in Chief Donald J. Trump (Photo: Gage Skidmore,
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Blue Monday and the Gloomy Canadians
Today is Blue Monday, the day some say is the most depressing day of the year. For obvious reasons.AS the Christmas memories fade, all we are left with are a hammered bank account, a bulge around the waist, gloomy weather and a return to work after weeks of partying. These
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Marty Warren highlights why Tim Hortons workers – and other people facing precarious and low-paying work – need union representation to ensure their interests are respected. And Christo Aivalis writes that the current discussion of minimum wage pairs fairness issues about distribution of
Continue readingMontreal Simon: The Inspiring Courage of Justin Trudeau
I've now had a chance to watch two of Justin Trudeau's Town Halls. And although I always find it hard in the cold dark days of January to get excited about anything. I have been extremely impressed by this remarkable democratic exercise. Justin Trudeau's town halls are a great
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Why Do Andrew Scheer And His Cons Lie So Much?
Andrew Scheer likes to portray himself as a man on a mission, a man chosen by his God to bring truth and light to Canada.As well as an avenging Trumpkin born to rain fire and brimstone down on Justin Trudeau and his "elites."But sadly for Scheer, as even some in
Continue readingMontreal Simon: The Slow Implosion and Appalling Cowardice of Andrew Scheer
For months Andrew Scheer has attacked Justin Trudeau like a bat out of hell.Accusing him of being incompetent, corrupt, a crook, even a terrorist sympathizer. The Con media let him and his Cons get away with it, and it has been a sordid spectacle that has badly damaged our democracy.A
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Wanda Wyporska highlights the UK’s corporate executive fat cats, and argues that it’s long past time for the public to stop rewarding them: So let’s put fat cat pay in context. Yes it has come down slightly, as Sir Martin Sorrell has
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Brent Patterson rightly worries about the prospect that Justin Trudeau will choose to emulate Donald Trump’s anti-social agenda (just as he’s too often done with Stephen Harper’s): At the time of last year’s federal budget, Finance Minister Bill Morneau commented he would
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Andrew Scheer’s Insane Attempt To Try To Change His Image
Not long ago I warned that Andrew Scheer's shadowy inner circle of religious fanatics, the group known as The Conclave, was in a full blown panic, or a friggin' frenzy.Their attempt to destroy Justin Trudeau had failed, and worse, had left Schmear looking like Mr Ugly.So the time had come
Continue readingMontreal Simon: The Almost Fatal Year of 2017 and the Hope of 2018
It's hard to believe. The year 2017 is finally over, and we're still here. But although just about everyone I know seems to heaving a giant sight of relief, and declaring that 2017 was a REALLY bad year.I think some really good things happened during its brief reign.Even though it was the
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Candice Bergen and the Trudeau Hating Cons
I've been trying to write something about what the year 2017 felt like to me, but it isn't easy.So many things happened, I can't decide whether it was a good year or a bad one. Or whether we're making progress, or going back to the Stone Age.And to make matters worse every
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Happy New Year! It wouldn’t be New Year’s Eve without AlbertaPolitics.ca’s Top Ten political predictions for 2018
PHOTOS: Will U.S. spear hunters like this guy still be able to come to Alberta after 2018? Your blogger predicts they’ll have to find ursine victims elsewhere. (Photo: Youtube screengrab, grabbed by the CBC and re-grabbed by me.) Below: Demonstrators on Cambie Street in Vancouver protest against the Kinder Morgan
Continue readingMontreal Simon: The Con Media and the Conapocalypse
It was Rosemary Con Barton's last At Issue panel of the year, and as usual it was a horror show.The ghastly Con conclave declared Pierre Poilievre to be the politician of the year for smearing Bill Morneau as only he could. Yes, that Pierre Poilievre.Then to make matters even more obscene, Con Barton
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Rupert Neate reports on the latest numbers showing the world’s 500 richest people adding a full trillion dollars to their wealth in 2017. And Will Fitzgibbon and Dean Starkman highlight how offshore tax avoidance schemes are sucking prosperity out of the rest
Continue readingAlberta Politics: There was a whole lotta scrambling going on, 24/7 … can the 2015 PMO security breach whodunit be solved?
PHOTOS: Former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper, at right, somewhere in Iraq in 2015 (Photo: Screenshot of Global News video). Below: The very model of a modern major general, although not necessarily a Canadian one (Photo: Wikimedia Commons), and the Canadian defence minister of the day with some ghostly military
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – The Economic Policy Institute charts how inequality and precarity are growing in the U.S. – and how that can be directly traced to the erosion of organized labour. And the World Inequality Report examines the trend toward increasing inequality on a global
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