Journalism must address “an elite power game”
Politicians no longer answer to voters, since virtually all votes are guaranteed by tribal loyalty; instead they answer to big donors... Shaming politicians has become next to impossible. Thanks to…
Norman Farrell
Inexcusable delay in BC courts
More than ten years have passed since Canada's worst environmental disaster. In August 2014, a mining company's tailings dam failed, spilling toxic sludge into Polley Lake, Hazeltine Creek and Quesnel…
CEO killer Luigi Mangione explains
The second amendment means I am my own chief executive and commander in chief of my own military. I authorize my own act of self-defense in response to a hostile…
The BC Conservative divide, UPDATED
Ms. Comfort Sakoma-Fadugba is no longer a member of the Vancouver Police Board. Her departure resulted from public statements that did not align with the Board's values. Sakoma's words may…
Murder most foul
A few days ago, fifty-year-old Brian Thompson was gunned down on a street in midtown Manhattan. Thompson was not an unimportant man. He was a senior executive of United Health…
Price-gouging, policy-corrupting ripoff machines
More and more of the Canadian economy is dominated by a handful of huge companies that control what we buy, how we work, and which other businesses can or can’t…
Invitation declined
A candidate for the People’s Party of Canada asked if I would join his podcast for a discussion of government functions. Having no interest in promoting or assisting that party,…
Language may change, but…
According to Oxfam International, the richest 1 percent have amassed $42 trillion in new wealth over the past decade, nearly 34 times more than the entire bottom 50 percent of…
Planet Earth in need of palliative care?
A knowledgeable friend believes that we have passed a threshold, beyond which our world will suffer irreversible changes in the climate system. He says Planet Earth now needs palliative care...
Healthcare in BC
After more than seven years of responsibility for the sector, Adrian Dix is blamed for healthcare inadequacies. Indeed, real challenges abound. Yet solutions to apparent problems can take much time…
DeBriefed
DeBriefed is a weekly newsletter from Carbon Brief, a UK based website that publishes the work of journalists and academics. The focus is on the effects of climate change and…
A Damien Gillis event worth our attention
In the early days of IN-SIGHTS, I was influenced by the late Rafe Mair and his Common Sense Canadian partner Damien Gillis. November 16, a film directed by Mr. Gillis…
Democracy, taken for granted and less valued
While BC voters moved to the right in October, the voting pattern was not substantially different than in earlier times. The same cannot be said for the USA. More than…
Recent readings
About poetry and essays from the November 2024 issue of Scientific American, the oldest continuously published magazine in the United States. The publication is useful for people at all levels…
Geothermal: unlimited, affordable, on-demand renewable energy
A decade ago, the Union of Concerned Scientists published a paper "How Geothermal Energy Works." It reported that the heat within 10,000 meters of the Earth's surface offers 50,000 times…
Accountability requires accurate and timely disclosures of BC’s finances
Years ago, Premier W.A.C. Bennett said the NDP "couldn't run a peanut stand." The BC Auditor General's report on the province's 2023-24 financial statements may reinforce that opinion. The Auditor…
Fascinate fools, muzzle the intelligent
More than 100 years ago, American labor activist Eugene Debs said, "Every robber or oppressor in history has wrapped himself in a cloak of patriotism or religion, or both." Today,…
Capturing fog
Not everything is doom and gloom at IN-SIGHTS. A story from The New Yorker's Brave New World Department is about Pavels Hedström, a Swedish architect based in Denmark. In architecture…
Don’t axe the tax; fix the tax
In theory, governments use carbon taxes to shift the costs of climate degradation from the public to those responsible for greenhouse gas emissions. However, contaminators can avoid paying carbon tax.…
Science denial, evil or stupid?
Sophisticated weaponry used in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and several other regions is causing acute suffering, death, and destruction. Some of the killing technologies are directly controlled by humans,…