There was little informative or edifying about the mostly successful effort by Premier Jason Kenney and three of his senior health care enablers to run out the clock on reporters’ questions at yesterday’s COVID-19 news conference. Facing not only the potential for difficult questions about the chaos in Alberta’s schools
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Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Nick Dunne interviews Colin Furness about the impact the Omicron COVID variant figures to have in schools – and the need to hold off on reopening after a holiday which has included grossly insufficient precautions. Alyson Kruger asks whether people are learning
Continue readingAlberta Politics: N.W.T. drops Alberta school curriculum, adopts B.C.’s – a powerful symbol of what’s gone awry under Jason Kenney
The news release from the Northwest Territories Government doesn’t even mention Alberta, but just the same it’s a powerful symbol of what’s gone awry in the province to the south under the United Conservative Party Government of Premier Jason Kenney. The release published yesterday in Yellowknife said that the N.W.T.’s
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Mark Lipsitch et al. examine the current state of knowledge about COVID breakthrough infections and the public health measures still needed to avoid them. Kenyon Wallace and Ed Tubb highlight the dangers of new waves of deadly viral spread in long-term care homes which
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Bruce Arthur writes about the need for governments’ responses to COVID to adapt to the increased risk posed by the Omicron variant. And Charles Blow writes that he’s understandably lost patience with anti-vaxxers who are endangering us all in the service of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Philip Bump discusses how partisan resistance to public health measures is making it harder for the U.S. to count on vaccinations to limit the spread of COVID-19. And Connor O’Donovan reports on how Saskatchewan’s health care system is drowning under chronic short-staffing which
Continue readingNorthern Currents : Reconciliation is a sham to our political leaders
Our political leaders have a deficient understanding of reconciliation. What they want to reconcile are the contradictory interests between Capital and Indigenous self-determination. Ultimately, our political leaders, embodied by the Canadian state, side with Capital. There is a much more radical, transformative understanding of reconciliation available.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Return of the Talking Head
I appeared on CTV’s News at 5 with Matt Young today, around 24:00 in this show. And of course, there were a few points I didn’t make in the process, most notably this: pathetic though it is that Scott Moe’s plan for Saskatchewan “autonomy” is copied from Jason Kenney, it’s
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Does spat between once-simpatico columnist and Jason Kenney signal the end of the road for Alberta’s premier?
Et tu, Brute? Was political columnist Rick Bell’s news conference question yesterday about allegations of cash being funnelled from political action committees to Jason Kenney’s supporters in advance of this weekend’s United Conservative Party annual general meeting a sign the end is near for Alberta’s increasingly unpopular premier? Alberta Premier
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Eric Topol writes about the new wave of COVID-19 decimating Europe – and the level of denial required to pretend that the U.S. or any other region can escape it without taking steps to protect public health. And Zak Vescera talks to public health
Continue readingThings Are Good: How to Avoid Billionaire Trolls
Figure 1 from Cook, Ellerton, and Kinkead 2018. CC BY 3.0 The biggest trolls in the world are also the richest. Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp fame and Elon Musk of Tesla fame are trolling us online and we shouldn’t let them get away with it. Zuckerberg trolls us by censoring
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Today in Female Erasure – Doctors Worried About Pregnant People…
This from CBC Kamloops. A nice bit of female erasure to start your day. It would seem our national news broadcaster has mysteriously misplaced the common knowledge that only women have the capacity to be pregnant. This is blatant female erasure from the public sphere, and it must be
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Edmonton officials want another $3-million sole-source advertising deal with Postmedia – they should do better
With the implication there’s no alternative solution, Edmonton’s city administration has asked City Council’s Executive Committee to ratify a $3-million sole-source contract with Postmedia tomorrow to provide print and digital advertising to the city for another three years. After all, says the administration’s report, we’ve been putting ads in the
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: This Makes Me Sad, Fire Takes Landmark From Corner Gas
Fire destroys iconic grain elevator from TV show Corner Gas https://t.co/N6nWCPsVoe — CBC Saskatchewan (@CBCSask) November 5, 2021
Continue readingAlberta Politics: On Alberta’s anti-equalization referendum, BQ’s Blanchet tells UCP’s Kenney: Bring it on!
As the folk wisdom goes, be careful what you wish for, you might just get it. Jason Kenney got his wish yesterday when Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet told him, in effect, to bring it on. “Let’s open the constitution,” Mr. Blanchet said with a gallic shrug and a sly
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Sorting fact from fiction in Allan Inquiry commentary and coverage: That $1.3-billion fib explained
The United Conservative Party and its allies are not being truthful when they say, “The public inquiry into anti-Alberta energy campaigns has confirmed that foreign donors gave $1.3 billion to Canadian environmentalists to harm Alberta’s energy sector.” It confirms no such thing. I pulled that particular quote from a tweet
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: On The Use & Abuse Of History
A typical account of history is presented in the video linked below, and here are some reflections on it, and on the general practice, or malpractice, of professional historians, and scholars and intellectuals broadly. As Noam Chomsky has said, the major media portray themselves as free and unbiased media, but
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Dismissed by CBC Ombudsman, Commissioner’s complaint about story shows ‘Alberta Inquiry’ all but down for the count
One Alberta story that didn’t get nearly enough attention in the past few days, and none at all from mainstream media, was Alberta Inquiry Commissioner Steve Allan’s risible complaint to the CBC Ombudsman that the broadcaster’s journalists hadn’t treated him fairly. Commissioner Allan’s gripe with two CBC investigative reporters, which
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: The difficult journey upstream
One of the signature messages of Ryan Meili’s work in activism and politics has been the concept of upstream thinking – described in extremely brief form here: To imagine a different approach, it’s helpful to start with a classic public health parable: Imagine you’re standing on the edge of a
Continue readingExcited Delirium: #ELXN44: Legault, My Ego
Some notes and thoughts about Legault’s interference in the federal election; 9/11 and media bailouts. None of it has to be this way. The post #ELXN44: Legault, My Ego first appeared on Excited Delirium.
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