Musical interlude

Nors Kode feat. Michelle Featherstone - I'm On Fire

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Sigal Samuel discusses the potential to better target investments toward well-being - though it seems odd to criticize measures of health as a standard alongside GDP. And Cory Doctorow writes about Deb Chachra's observation that we should view infrastructure as a form of mutual aid.

- Carl Meyer reports on Suncor CEO Rich Kruger's dissembling and evasion in response to questioning about his company's plans to increase carbon pollution for decades to come. Markham Hislop highlights how the regular release of toxic chemicals into drinking water for the tar sands should be treated as an intolerable regulatory failure rather than merely a PR issue for the oil industry. And Shari Narine reports on the Assembly of First Nations' message that Indigenous involvement is vital to the development of climate change solutions. 

- Douglas Main points out the glaring gap between the promise of recycling plastics, and the reality that plastic pollution is overwhelming our natural environment. And andrea bennett interviews Taras Grescoe about the need to work with natural ecosystems to secure our food supply, rather than presuming that industrialized monocultures controlled by greedy rentiers are our only option.

- Finally, Luke LeBrun exposes how the Cons invited violent extremists and conspiracy theorists into Parliament as "VIP" guests. 

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Bordered cats.

Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Arijit Chakravarthy and Martha Lincoln offer a reminder that COVID-19 isn't about to go away just because we're refusing to deal with it. And CBC News and Adam Toy report on renewed masking requirements in Manitoba and Alberta health care facilities respectively. 

- Meanwhile, Roberta Lexier and Joe Vipond write about the need to respond to critical threats such as COVID-19 and the climate crisis with facts rather than fantasies. But Mike De Souza exposes how Danielle Smith is systematically preventing Albertans from having access to anything of the sort. 

- Matthew Rosza asks why a climate breakdown which is making our planet uninhabitable is somehow being ignored rather than treated as the top news story of our time. And Andrew Nikiforuk points out how  the Trans Mountain pipeline is proving to be an ever-deepening money pit (even as its best-case scenario would result in its worsening the climate crisis for the sake of enriching oil barons).  

- Brian Doucet discusses the housing strategies which have helped to somewhat alleviate the shortage of affordable homes in some Canadian communities - with public housing authorities and protections for tenants serving as the most promising examples. But Rumneek Johal reports that real estate executives are shoveling massive amounts of cash at the federal Cons in an effort to ensure federal housing policy serves to goose their profits rather than meeting people's needs.  

- Finally, Alex Purdye examines how greedflation is at the root of the growth of increasing food prices (and grocery chain profits). 

Monday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Somasetty Suresh examines the symptoms associated with long COVID, while Elizabeth Cooney reports on new research hinting at the depletion of peripheral serotonin as one of its causes. And Jamie Ducharme points out that the CDC (and other public health authorities) still has much-needed recommendations as to isolation in place - even if few organizations are bothering to allow people to abide by them. 

- Meanwhile, Peter Simons discusses how apparent "patient advocacy organizations" are often funded and controlled by pharmaceutical and medical supply companies seeking to goose their own sales. 

- Seth Borenstein reports that even in the wake of multiple catastrophes caused by a climate breakdown in progress, the U.S. is producing more carbon-polluting oil than ever before. And Capital & Main highlights the inability of tree-planting to actually counter the harms from continued carbon pollution. 

- Cory Doctorow writes about the long-awaited declaration of invalidity of Landmark Technology's patent which claimed exclusive rights over virtually every aspect of online business operations - while also pointing out the absurdity of allowing such grossly unproductive rentier capitalism to be as profitable as it's been for decades.  

- Finally, Elijah Anderson discusses how any success and prosperity among Black Americans has been used to stoke white backlash.