This and that for your Sunday reading. – Agence France-Presse reports that even the IMF has reached the conclusion that higher taxes on wealthy citizens are a necessary part of competent economic management – even as the Harper Cons and other right-wing governments keep trying to peddle trickle-down economics to
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Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Gordon Hoekstra reports on a study by British Columbia determining that Canada lacks any hope of containing the types of oil spills which will become inevitable if the Cons’ pipe-and-ship plans come to fruition. But once again, the Cons’ response is to make
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, following up on Alex Himelfarb and Jordan Himelfarb’s observations about the need to talk about the good we can do with tax revenue by noting the importance of making sure public money and authority aren’t diverted to private or corporate purposes. For further reading…– CBC reports on Alberta’s exclusion
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Blacklocks reports (PDF) on the abuse of a corporate tax credit which served as an “open bar” allowing businesses to have the public fund their basic operations. And it’s surely worth noting that after that abuse was identified, the Cons’ reaction was
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Justin Ling reports on the federal government’s covert surveillance of Idle No More: Sitting in her teepee on Ottawa’s Victoria Island in December 2012, Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence was officially starting her hunger strike, breathing fire into the Idle No More movement
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Polly Toynbee discusses how the UK’s attacks on social programs are based on gross ignorance about what social spending does (and who it helps): The Citizens Advice Bureau reports a rise of 78% in the last six months in people needing food banks
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Reject Verizon, Establish Telecommunications Crown Corporation: Union
The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada urges the Harper government to reject Verizon’s bid to become Canada’s fourth largest telecoms carrier and, instead, establish a telecommunications Crown Corporation. The post Reject Verizon, Establish Telecommunications Crown Corporation: Union appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Jenny Carson asks what governments are doing to lift poor workers out of poverty. (Spoiler alert: the Cons’ answer is “why would we want to do that?”). – Meanwhile, Kemal Dervis and Uri Dadush discuss the desperate need to rein in inequality
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Glenn Greenwald, David Atkins and Simon Jenkins all discuss the U.K.’s detention of David Miranda – with heavy emphasis on the Cameron government’s apparent belief journalism and terrorism are synonymous. And Ian Welsh points out the need to fight back against a pervasive
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Not surprisingly, this week’s revelations about Pamela Wallin have set off plenty more discussion about what’s wrong with the Senate and its current beneficiaries. Andrew Coyne recognizes that the problem lies in the design of an institution based on patronage and unaccountability
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on the tendency of both political decision-makers and the general public to give too much credence to secret information – and the need for citizens to scrutinize leaders all the more closely if they rely on bare declarations that we’d agree with their actions if only we knew what
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Jacob Goldstein discusses how one-time, no-strings-attached funding for the poor in developing countries can produce lasting improvements in their standard of living – while also highlighting the need for longer-term development: A charity that gives away money, as opposed to, say, offering
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Dan Leger points to the Lac-Mégantic rail explosion as an all-too-vivid example of the intersection of privatized profits and socialized risks: Are we tough enough on corporations that destroy, burn and kill? What’s happening at Lac-Mégantic suggests we aren’t. There’s a scramble on
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s statement to human rights groups
by: Obert Madondo | Twitter: @Obiemad: WikiLeaks has posted NSA surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden’s statement to human rights groups, issued earlier today at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport. Here’s the full text: Hello. My name is Ed Snowden. A little over one month ago, I had family, a home in paradise, and I lived in
Continue readingCowichan Conversations: Surveillance and Security Safeguard Our Democracy-Such A Comfort!
With all of the attention on surveillance, spying, terrorists and such this video clearly shows what we are getting for our tax dollars invested in security.
Continue readingdrive-by planet: Greenwald via Skype at Socialism 2013: ‘world will be shocked’ by upcoming NSA exposé
At the Socialism 2013 conference in Chicago, Glenn Greenwald received deserved accolades from introductory speakers Sherry Wolf and Jeremy Scahill. Greenwald spoke via Skype about the courage and integrity of Edward Snowden and the importance of his NSA surveillance revelations. He had this to say about the attacks on Snowden:
Continue readingdrive-by planet: NSA leaks: abuse of power: John Pilger on the rise of a new fascism
Ed Snowden’s leaks that reveal the NSA’s borderless metadata trawling and massive invasion of Americans’ privacy is further evidence that something is rotten in the heart of empire. Equally disturbing is the shrug and compliance of the Fourth Estate. No matter how far their idol Obama strays from the principles
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Rick Salutin highlights the dangers of relying on bulk data collection and algorithmic analysis as a basis to restrict individual rights: The National Post’s Jen Gerson interviewed a U.S. privacy expert. She asked about the PRISM program, by which U.S. agencies spy on
Continue readingThings Are Good: How to Get Out From the Invasive PRISM Surveillance Program
Thanks to the brave efforts from Edward Snowden we are now aware of something long suspected: that the USA (and many other nations including Canada) are reading our communications. The program is called PRISM and it monitors your communication. Basically, if you connect to the internet or use a mobile
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Frances Russell discusses the inevitable collateral damage to our planet from the Cons’ war on science: Over the past 200 years, Canadians built on flood plains because “we thought we had relatively stable climate — the climate we experienced over the past century,”
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