New column day
Here, on how a narrow focus on balancing budgets misses the more important story as to how our elected officials manage public money. For further reading…– Paul Krugman makes a…
Privatization
Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Tabatha Southey rightly turns Brad Trost into a poster boy for the Harper Cons’ deliberate aversion to critical self-evaluation: We shouldn’t be too…
Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Ray Grigg explains how Idle No More and other decentralized social movements may make for a crucial counterweight to the Harper Cons and…
Aaron Swartz, Intellectual Property and the Public Good
Should academic work be locked up like Disney artifacts? I’ve been quite inspired by this very good analysis of the context surrounding Aaron Swartz’s suicide. As news spread last week…
Foundation Skills Assessment: Another Dirty Trick
By Rachel Goodine The FSAs, or Foundation Skills Assessment tests, administered annually in British Columbia since 2000 to students in grades 4 and 7, are once again under way. They…
Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Erika Shaker rightly tears into the special brand of FAIPOF demanding that First Nations protesters focus solely on their own community leaders rather…
Admitting the price of privatization (when it all goes bad)
ORNGE providing a vital service. Photo: Jason Edward Scott Bain The Globe and Mail kindly lobbed a few questions for the disgraced, former boss of ORNGE, Chris Mazza to swat…
Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Frank Graves’ review of the current state of Canadian politics focuses in on the growing gap between the Cons’ waning interest in listening…
Here’s another anti-Margaret Thatcher song with almost the…
Here’s another anti-Margaret Thatcher song with almost the same title as the other one I posted. “The Day that Thatcher Dies” by Hefner has a glam rock/Elton John/Britpop feel to…
Margaret Thatcher, former British prime minister, close personal…
Margaret Thatcher, former British prime minister, close personal friend of murderous dictator Augusto Pinochet, and idol of capitalist extremists everywhere, was in hospital just before Christmas to have a growth…
Privatization Via Blackmail
If you want to see why there isn’t much of a real left wing in the USA, this graph of those seeking the White House in 2008 pretty much covers…
Why does ArcelorMittal hate Bosnia?
Pollution, people and tombstones in Zenica. Owned by the Indian billionaire Lakshmi Mittal, ArcelorMittal is the world’s largest steel producer—creating some 93 billion USD of revenue as of 2011. Granted,…
The future for long-term care looks grim: Mass privatization
As with hospital beds, the government and other proponents of the near freeze in new long-term care beds suggest that home care can take up the slack. Does this stand…
Should we tolerate secrecy for public health care?
It’s amusing to review the course of events that led to the revelation of the secrecy concerning the problems at private surgical and diagnostic clinics. The doctors lobbied to move…
Rob Ford Shouldn’t Be Removed On A Technicality
I’ve been thinking about this a lot since the decision came down to oust Rob Ford over a “conflict of interest” technicality a couple of weeks ago. I have a…
Rob Ford Shouldn’t Be Removed On A Technicality
I've been thinking about this a lot since the decision came down to oust Rob Ford over a "conflict of interest" technicality a couple of weeks ago. I have a…
Rob Ford Shouldn’t Be Removed On A Technicality
I’ve been thinking about this a lot since the decision came down to oust Rob Ford over a “conflict of interest” technicality a couple of weeks ago. I have a…
Who should you trust? Former PC advisor shills in the Star for private health care
Francesca Grosso says she is an established expert in health care policy. A former PC health care policy director, her day job these days is a principal at Grosso McCarthy,…
Liberals prevent public reporting of failed private clinics
Queen's Park in Darkeness (Grant MacDonald) Yesterday I fumed about the gall of one academic who claimed that privatized P3s (public private partnerships) had actually increased public transparency. Even more…