Assorted content to end your week. – Robert Reich confirms the seemingly obvious reality that poverty and inequality are in fact major obstacle facing the poor. And Paul Krugman explains why any successful progressive movement in the U.S. will need to discuss inequality and the hoarding of wealth to challenge
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Alberta Diary: Ted Cruz: For God (& country’s) sake, talk to Conrad Black before you shred your Canadian passport!
Canada or USA? USA or Canada? Texas Senator Ted Cruz, visible between the signs, ponders what he should do. Actual Tea Party favourites may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Mr. Cruz waves bye-bye to his fellow Canadians … maybe; Lord Black of Crossharbour. It’s said here that Calgary native
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Michael Katz looks back at how the U.S. abandoned its poor – and how that choice continues to affect people across the income spectrum today. And Michael Valpy discusses how Canada can and should avoid travelling any further down the same path –
Continue readingIn This Corner: Revealed! Who killed Kennedy!
November 22, 1963. Death of a president. Birth of an industry. There have been an estimated 40,000 books (seriously — this is an actual New York Times estimate) written about John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 2,000 of which deal with the assassination 50 years ago today. And in those 2,000 books, there
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: What If
….everything you thought you knew about our democracy was an illusion? The following video, made before the last U.S. election and directed toward an American audience, will doubtlessly resonate with Canadians who despair of our current state: Recommend this Post
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Armine Yalnizyan points out that Canada has followed the global pattern in which income growth has disproportionately been directed toward the few people with the most to begin with: Canada’s story pales in comparison – and so does our access to comprehensive and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – There was never much doubt that the Cons’ demolition of Canada’s long-form census was intended to ensure that we lack data needed to develop evidence-based policies – and that the effects would be most significant among the most marginalized (or exclusive) groups. And
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Saturday Night Special
While I plan to do more with this topic tomorrow, the following video, via The Raw Story, offers some interesting insights on the minimum wage in the United States. All of the points made, moreover, are equally applicable to Canada. Recommend this Post
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Robert Reich asks a few impertinent (but important) questions about plutocratic encroachment on the U.S.’ political system. – Catherine McKenna explains why it’s important to try to make a difference in our political system. But Chris Cobb reports on what happens to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – The Globe and Mail weighs in on the Lac-Mégantic tragedy by pointing out that we should be far more concerned about public safety than technical defences and excuses. Saskboy notes that as soon as a corporation’s business choices lead to a massive public
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Joseph Stiglitz makes the case for free trade talks to be based on the public interest rather than the further entrenchment of corporate power and siphoning of wealth to the top. But there’s little reason to expect a meeting of corporate and government
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Kathleen Geier makes the case for greater progressive activism at lower levels of government – and the point applies with equal force in Canada: (T)hose of us who want to build a more progressive America would be well-advised to pay relatively less
Continue reading350 or bust: Grassroot Activists Gather On Capitol Hill To Lobby For Carbon Tax
* It was no easy feat trying to keep my cool while racing in my high heels between Congressional and Senate offices in the scorching D.C. heat last Tuesday. More than once I wondered about the wisdom of leaving behind the comfortable Red Lake summer to join nearly four
Continue reading350 or bust: The Obama Tar Sands Pipeline
Is the Keystone XL pipeline really what President Obama wants to leave as his legacy, for future generations to remember him by – and curse him for? * Meanwhile climate destabilization continues as unabated as our carbon dioxide emissions: Czech PM Declares Emergency As Floods Threaten Prague: Czech Prime Minister Petr
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Elizabeth Warren
With each story that I read about her, my respect for Elizabeth Warren grows. Would that Canada had someone similar to inspire us. Recommend this Post
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Terror of terrorism and the Second Amendment: Whatever became of the indomitable American spirit?
The indomitable American spirit personified above. Whatever became of it? Below: Bogie as Philip Marlowe, with gun; the leader of another English-speaking country refusing to knuckle under to the Luftwaffe, also with gun. We have learned, courtesy the news media, that membership in the National Rifle Association has surged past
Continue reading350 or bust: Politicians Fiddling While Planet Burns: Scientists Warn 400 PPM Milestone Ahead
From Citizens Climate Lobby Canada: MAY 1, 2013 – “For the first time in 3 million years [1], the average daily concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, as recorded at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, is about to exceed 400 parts per million (PPM), a strong indication that
Continue reading350 or bust: Obama Calls Out Climate Deniers, & Other Good News
It’s always enjoyable (and all too rare!) to share good news, and I’m pleased that there’s some to share on this, the last Friday in April: The Ontario government under newly elected premier Kathleen Wynne announced on Wednesday that it will be partnering with the government of Manitoba and the
Continue reading350 or bust: Next, Kansas Republicans Plan To Outlaw Sunshine
* No matter how hard the fossil fools try to stuff the renewable energy genie back into the bottle (click here to read more about Kansas’s latest back-the-past bill), the green energy economy is growing. For example, in March 2013 the number of Australian homes with solar power systems passed
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On impending failures
Lest anybody see the high-profile Atlanta example of standardized testing fraud as an isolated incident, Valerie Strauss writes about how Sask Party-style mandatory testing has produced similar problems across the U.S.: In the past four academic years, test cheating has been confirmed in 37 states and Washington D.C. (You can
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