Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Kelsey Piper writes about the U.S.' memory-holing of the successes of a vaccine program which resulted in exceptionally quick development and distribution of effective COVID vaccines (and should have set a precedent for future pandemic planning). 

- Dustin Cook and Mike Hager note that while Doug Ford tries to claim there's no alternative to turning surgeries into a profit center, B.C. is instead achieving actual improvements by investing its public health care system. And Ryan McGreal discusses how the structure of Canadian health care - including the concessions to profit-seeking baked in from the start - is facilitating the push to privatize. 

- Meanwhile, Richard Murphy points out that one-time lump sums being offered by the UK's Cons as a substitute for fair wages are intended only to lock workers into longer-term reductions in real pay. And Jeremy Appel writes about new CCPA research showing that the largest beneficiary of inflation in Canada has been the resource extraction section - which has seen massive windfall profits while passing virtually nothing along to workers. 

- Max Fawcett discusses how Danielle Smith is lying to Albertans about a just transition in order to keep public policy skewed toward the continued enrichment of oil and gas tycoons. And Hannah Ritchie points out the absurdity of spin attempting to justify continued reliance on dirty energy (and environmental destruction associated with its extraction) by complaining about the far lesser amount of mining required to supply clean alternatives. 

- Simon Enoch points out a couple of prime examples of Saskatchewan's corporate-owned politicians substituting meaningless words for policy which does anything to benefit people - including the Moe government's publicity blitz around the word "sustainable" in lieu of any plan to build an economy which is consistent with anything short of climate disaster. 

- Finally, Cat Zakrzewski, Cristiano Lima and Drew Harwell report on what the U.S. House of Representatives' January 6 committee learned about the actions of social media giants in allowing violent rhetoric to appease the alt-right.