Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Claude Lavoie examines the problems with the far-too-rarely-questioned assumption that public policy needs to be oriented toward top-end economic growth at the expense of human well-being and environmental sustainability. – George Monbiot calls out how the wealthiest few have torqued the law to
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Accidental Deliberations: Friday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Chris Hedges discusses how the end of empire-based colonialism has only given way to an even more exploitative corporate version. And Cory Doctorow points out how surveillance capitalism inevitably turns its resources toward defrauding the people being monitored and manipulated. – Matthew Rosza
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your weekend reading. – Alejandro de la Garza writes about the devastation continuing to be wrought by COVID-19 in Lamb County, Texas even as the powers that be pretend the pandemic is in the past. And John Michael McGrath discusses why Ontario shouldn’t count on the Ford
Continue readingThings Are Good: Big Box Stores Remove Products Used to Violate Human Rights
Two of the largest retail chains in the United States have stopped the sale of Chinese-made surveillance products used by the Chinese government to violate human rights. This move to ban the sale of particular Chinese surveillance goods is a direct reaction to those companies benefiting from the ongoing Uyghur
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Michael Bang Pedersen argues that the COVID pandemic offers a prime example of the importance of telling hard truths to the public – rather than engaging in the wishful thinking, sugar-coating and general denial we’ve come to expect from Scott Moe. And Susie
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Nazeem Muhajarine and Kathryn Green call out Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government for causing readily-preventable suffering and death – both from COVID-19 directly, and its devastating effects on the broader health care system. And Scott Larson reports on the “grim” situation facing
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Don Braid discusses how Alberta’s health care system and polity are both collapsing under the weight of a UCP government which has utterly failed to protect either from readily-preventable damage. And Emily Pasiuk reports on Jason Kenney’s continued excuses for letting COVID-19 run
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Guy Quenneville reports on the frustration of Cory Neudorf and other Saskatchewan doctors due to the Moe government’s decision to ignore all available science on COVID-19, while Alberta doctors have taken to providing the daily briefings the government has chosen to abandon. Cam
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Scott Larson reports on the continually rising number of active COVID-19 cases in Saskatchewan. Lauren Pelley discusses the likelihood that even fully-vaccinated people will be exposed to COVID infection – particularly if public health measures aren’t maintained or put back in place.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Mickey Djuric reports on Saskatchewan’s alarmingly high rate of positive COVID-19 tests as students prepare to return to school. And Heidi Atter reports on the Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation’s call for mandatory vaccination to minimize the all-too-predictable spread in the school environment. – PressProgress
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Big Brother Is Watching You – and Yes, It Matters
I talked to my boy in the car this past weekend about what to do when he drives, if he has any problems; and he talked to me about the language learning, free software that he uses on his phone. Two days later, Virgin Mobile, now owned by Bell, sends
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan highlight how inequitable access to vaccines around the globe increases the risk of variants which will hurt everybody. Charles Schmidt takes note of the work being done to track variants – but also the massive blind spots which
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Tavia Grant writes that a year and half of experience have confirmed that the most important element in reducing the workplace spread of COVID-19 is ensuring adequate ventilation – but that public health rules have utterly failed to reflect that knowledge. Mickey Djuric
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Government and Corporations Care About Your Privacy: That’s Why They Support the Bi-Partisan Global Fascist Coup
Western governments and their criminal friends in big tech pretend to care about citizen’s privacy, while secretly destroying it. But privacy is a misnomer and a red herring. The central issue is whether the people should be spied upon by their government and its big business allies. That is the
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Distance Yourself From Evil, Not People
The Boycott Big Tech Movement Begins Here First rule: Question everything, and think for yourself. Second rule: Don’t support your slavers. (Gandhi, MLK and Thoreau would understand. It’s time for mass civil disobedience.) Nothing is free. If you want to say no to Big Brother, you have to pay for
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Cognitive Dissonance, Mass Insanity & Covid Hysteria
Check the numbers. The disease is not ravaging us, is not unprecedented, but has killed 1/3rd the death toll of a typical year of the common flu. DOES ANYBODY FACT-CHECK ANYMORE?! If 300,000 to 700,000 deaths per year from the common annual flu, which is typical, and happens every year,
Continue readingThings Are Good: Fashionable Solutions to Thwart Invasive Surveillance
What you wear can impinge the ability of people to look at you. That’s been true for centuries, but today your fashion choices can actually make it harder for governments or private entities to track you throughout the day. The mass surveillance in our current society should concern you as
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Welcome To The Brave New World
Speaking of censorious scrupulosity…. While censorship is rising rapidly, with Google, Facebook and Twitter, as well as the major media, controlling and restricting what people can see or read, say or share; Facebook is now blocking me from posting my own essays from my blog to my Farcebook page. Welcome
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Fiona Harvey writes about the perfect storm of environmental crises leaving us at risk of societal collapse. And Tim Flannery calls out the deception and denial from Australia’s government after it has contributed to setting its own country ablaze. – Mark Olalde
Continue readingThings Are Good: Tips for Remaining Anonymous in the Surveillance Age
Surveillance capitalism benefits companies who have large datasets about what people do and where they are – without the consent of those being monitored. The pervasive modern surveillance which is around us everyday from our phones to private cameras can be connected to large corporations or governments for nefarious purposes.
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