Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Jessica Wildfire examines the continued threat of COVID-19 even as governments have largely decided to stop recognizing its devastating effects on public health. And Tom Kitchin points out how the same phenomenon has played out even in New Zealand (which was once one of the few success stories in limiting the spread of COVID). 

- Arthur Neslen reports on the suppression of the findings of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization on the climate impacts of methane originating with livestock. And Isaac Shan Nay reports on the Ford PCs' choice to scuttle First Nations' conservation plans. 

- Meanwhile, Matt Elliott discusses how Toronto's introduction of "traffic agents" serves mostly to highlight how pointless it is to shackle transportation policy with the requirement that cars take precedence over people. 

- David Moscrop is justifiably frustrated with the Ford two-step of reluctantly backtracking from utterly indefensible policies only in the face of immense and sustained public pressure. Noah Smith argues that the U.S. needs a larger and better-resourced civil service to ensure policy decisions aren't based solely on politicians' whims or corporate profit motives. And Crawford Kilian reviews Chris Rufo's plans to destroy what's left of existing public institutions so you don't have to.  

- Finally, Peter Zimonjic reports on the House of Commons Agriculture Committee's plans to again question corporate grocers about their price-gouging - though it's telling that the only apparent plan is to ask them to stabilize prices rather than delving into what can be done through government action. And Cory Doctorow examines how corporate meat suppliers have been colluding to drive up prices for decades without consequences.