Friday Evening Links

This and that for your evening reading.

- Erin offers up his suggestions for the Saskatchewan NDP's renewal process:

The next NDP leader will presumably be met with a barrage of negative advertising from the Sask Party. New Democrats would do well to elect a leader who will be less vulnerable than Lingenfelter to such attacks. But it will also need a communications strategy and war chest to counter them.

Delaying the leadership vote until 2013 would prevent the Sask Party from negatively defining the NDP leader before New Democrats have the organizational and financial resources to fight back. This timeline would still leave at least two years to positively define and establish the new leader before the 2015 provincial election.

- Digby highlights the brand of plutocrat-friendly populism that Republicans are offering up in an effort to turn the Occupy movement on its head - featuring primarily an all-out attack on the idea of universal programs. And it's not hard to see parallels to what we've heard in Canada as a means of distracting from the growing problem of inequality across all income levels.

- Meanwhile, Dr. Dawg points out the Cons' willingness to let corporate spin take precedence over any semblance of accuracy in the labeling of baby food.

- Finally, it's reassuring to know that the City of Regina is finally willing to do something to encourage the building of rental space - just as long as it's to help deal with a perceived corporate housing crisis. No wonder the city won't abide any more protest on its watch.