Assorted content to end your week. – Sigal Samuel discusses the potential to better target investments toward well-being – though it seems odd to criticize measures of health as a standard alongside GDP. And Cory Doctorow writes about Deb Chachra’s observation that we should view infrastructure as a form of
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Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Sabina Vohra-Miller discusses the ample body of research showing how COVID-19 vaccinations produce superior health outcomes in the course of a pregnancy. And Nature examines the limited effectiveness of rapid tests in identifying asymptomatic cases (which are responsible for half of COVID transmission). –
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Fiona Harvey reports on Greta Thunberg’s warning that a failure to stop burning fossil fuels amounts to a death sentence for people living in poverty – which would be a much more powerful message if the denial of environmental disaster and devaluation of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Umair Haque discusses the absurdity (and manufactured idiocy) that results in us continuing with extractive business as usual as we enter a palpable age of extinction. And Richard Eskow writes about the reasons why billionaires can’t tolerate the prospect that most people
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Thom Hartmann offers a reminder of the broad-based growth and social progress which is possible when capitalists are required to pay reasonable tax rates. And conversely, Cory Doctorow examines the utterly destructive practices of private equity – which is being catered to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Beth Mole reports on research showing that U.S. children suffered a spike in brain abscesses after COVID protections were removed – and that the levels continue to be elevated long after everybody has been told not to bother doing anything to avoid the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your week. – David Slater and Charles Rusnell write about the unconscionable lack of any meaningful discussion of the climate breakdown in Alberta’s provincial election even as much of the province has been ablaze and/or facing extreme air quality warnings. Brad Plumer reports on a new
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Omar Mosleh discusses the growing damage being caused by repeated wildfires in Canada, while David Wallace-Wells writes that there’s no escape from the air pollution being spread across the continent. And Don Pittis points out how public accounts which don’t assess the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Nina Lakhani reports on the latest data showing greenhouse gas emissions rising at an alarming rate. Bill McKibben discusses the math of climate change – including the vanishing budget for continued carbon pollution if we want to avoid catastrophic outcomes, and the
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Assorted content to end your week. – Al Shaw, Irena Hwang and Caroline Chen discuss how forest loss and changing interactions between people and wildlife could be the trigger for a future pandemic. Christian Elliott points out that thawing permafrost is likely to release neurotoxic methylmercury in addition to a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Luke Savage points out that even biased right-wing polling is finding broad support for stronger social programs and limitations on corporate domination in Canada and the U.S. But Jake Johnson writes that the Biden administration is instead increasing military funding while putting
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Reining in the reign of plastic
I was modestly surprised last week when my groceries were packed not in the usual plastic but in brown paper bags. The idea, of course, is to get away from single-use plastics. Not that my grocery bags were ever single-use. I took my bags back the next time I shopped
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Anne Sosin and Martha Lincoln discuss the war on empathy embodied by the flurry of media attacks against anybody with the temerity to point out we’re still in the middle of a pandemic where a lack of care for others is directly
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Andrew Nikiforuk examines what we know about – and what we should be doing in response to – the Kraken COVID-19 variant which is running amok in parts of the US and beginning to spread in Canada. – Whizy Kim writes about
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This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Juliana Kim reports on the growing wave of public health advice recommending masking in order to limit the harm from a “tripledemic” of infectious diseases. Blair Crawford reports on PSAC’s rightful concern that a return-to-the-office order will avoidably expose workers and their
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This and that for your Thursday reading. – Anjana Ahuja highlights the risks which result from quackery treating theories about an “immunity debt” as a reason to expose children to avoidable disease. And John Paul Tasker reports on Jean-Yves Duclos’ attempt to ensure children get vaccinated, even as far too
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – David Axe reports on the spread of a new COVID-19 subvariant which pairs increased transmissibility with resistance to antibody therapies. And Andrew Gregory reports on the World Health Organization’s pleas for some recognition of the damage being done by long COVID, while Benjamin
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Pratyush Dayal reports on the COVID outbreak which has infected every single resident of a Regina care home. And Dan Scheuerman reports on the effect the drug poisoning crisis is having on people’s health generally by further straining already-limited health care resources.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Tom Brodbeck writes about the need to treat the victims of the COVID-19 pandemic as human beings, rather than mere statistics to be reported once and never thought of again. – Gabriel Favreau discusses how the pandemic (combined with a negligent government
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Bruce Arthur is rightly frustrated by an attitude of utter denial and amnesia toward a pandemic still in progress. And Fenit Nirappil, Craig Pittman and Maureen O’Hagan report on the deterioration of the U.S.’ response, including a dramatic increase over the case load
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