Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Linda McQuaig calls out the Ford PCs for making it even more difficult to hold corporate health care operators to account for sub-par service. And Emma McIntosh, Fatima Syed and Denise Balkissoon discuss Ford's latest sketchy step to turn farmland and industrial areas into new suburban sprawl, 

- Guido Lorenzi and Ivan Werning theorize (PDF) that inflation is best seen as conflict-based, representing the accumulation of price increases by parties with the perceived market power to impose them. And Duncan Kinney offers a reminder that the largest set of money stolen is that pilfered from workers by employers. 

- Colin Woodard discusses how car payments are taking up an increasingly large share of already-strained U.S. incomes. And Paul Kiel examines how the ultrarich are able to claim private jets and yachts as tax deductions while most people have to pay for transportation from after-tax incomes. 

- Finally, J.W. Mason discusses why socialists should be eager to see industrial policy as a tool to ensure that productive capacity is used to meet human needs and develop desirable economic activity (including the tools for a just transition). And Kevin Anderson offers an overview of what an effective plan to limit warming to 1.5 degrees will require - while noting that what's needed far exceeds what any major actors currently have on the table. 

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Katherine Wu warns about the consequences of the powers that be deciding that people will be subjected to repeated COVID-19 infections. And Saba Qasmieh et al. examine the difference between reported case numbers and actual COVID prevalence, and find that the data now being provided may underestimate case counts by 30 times due to the choice not to conduct systematic testing. 

- The Globe and Mail's editorial board discusses how density - not further publicly-subsidized sprawl - represents a key part of the solution to ensuring people's right to housing is met. 

- Marco Chown Oved, Kenyon Wallace and Ed Tubb call out the Ford PCs' plan to shovel billions more public dollars toward the well-connected private long-term care home operators which saw some of the worst death rates in the course of the COVID pandemic. And Stephen Magusiak and Luke LeBrun report that Doug Ford's shady activities include having inner-circle operatives put one of his own cabinet ministers under surveillance. 

- Duncan Kinney exposes how the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce is exploiting a loophole intended for community groups to avoid property tax on most of a $11 million commercial property - and how the provincial government is allowing the business lobby tax advantages which aren't available for labour organizations. 

- Finally, Umair Haque laments the ongoing - and indeed worsening - carnage in the U.S. most recently exemplified through the mass murders in Buffalo and Uvalde. Elizabeth Bruenig writes about the U.S.' final descent into utter nihilism as yet another preventable  massacre of children produces public outcry but absolutely no policy response. And Sigal Samuel writes about the debate over grossly insufficient estimates of the social cost of carbon in the U.S. - and the reality that any reasonable valuation of human rights and a viable existence for future generations would make any avoidable carbon pollution untenable. 

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- The Max Planck Society explores how COVID-19 has developed to hide out and mutate within the human body. Tami Luhby discusses how even a receding Omicron wave has continued to have devastating effects on millions of Americans. And Jessie Anton reports on the concerns of Saskatchewan teachers about having to try to assess risk in the dark, while Mickey Djuric reports that what little Scott Moe is allowing anybody to see includes a spike in emergency room visits by children under 5. 

- Debra Satz and Stuart White write about the damage income inequality does to the fundamental underpinnings of democracy. And Elise von Scheel exposes Jason Kenney's selective calls to insulate Alberta-connected Russian oligarchs from sanctions, while Duncan Kinney reports on the money the AIMCo pension fund has invested in Russian assets. 

- Nick Gottlieb writes that a U.S. court reviewing the Biden administration's cancellation of oil and gas leases has recognized the folly of claiming to be addressing climate change by subsidizing and expanding fossil fuel production - and calculates how Canada's own choices are indefensible when that factor is taken into account. John Woodside discusses how Canada is both contributing to and suffering from the climate breakdown in progress based on the IPCC's most recent findings. And Rebecca Leber discusses the need for climate policy to be informed by social science research in order to be effective. 

- Finally, Mitchell Thompson highlights how Doug Ford's plan for gig workers is to strip them of benefits and protections which would otherwise be available to them. 

Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Rachel Aiello reports on Dr. Theresa Tam's observation that Canada has failed its most vulnerable residents in responding to the coronavirus pandemic. And David Moscrop discusses the danger of losing trust in the institutions needed to respond to collective problems - though as noted by Robert Hiltz, the loss of faith in many right-wing provincial governments in particular is entirely justified based on their failure to act for the public good. 

- But on the bright side, Peter Kujawinski writes about the success of the Northest Territories in protecting its population.

- Naomi Buck writes that the disproportionate effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on women's employment highlights the desperate need for universal child care.

- Zak Vescera reports on Saskatchewan's increasing use of privately-operated group homes who have neglected children in the province's care.

- Finally, Duncan Kinney reports on the likelihood that the Lethbridge police officers who placed NDP MLA Shannon Phillips under politically-motivated surveillance won't face meaningful consequences for doing so.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Robert Reich offers a reminder that the Trump administration is just the most glaring example of the utter breakdown of any pretense of meritocracy in the U.S.

- Daniel Zamora interviews Niklas Olsen about the dangers of replacing the idea of government representing the outcome of communal decision-making with a series of consumer-style brand choices.

- Carla Santos Kandier writes that it's unrealistic to expect a climate crisis to be averted by the version of a market system that's biased heavily in favour of polluting industries. And Seema Syeda discusses the importance of the movement to get financial institutions to stop funding the destruction of a habitable climate.

- Duncan Kinney discusses how Jason Kenney's exclusionary social conservatism is far out of touch with most Alberta voters. And Jen Gerson notes that even small-c conservatives are understandably concerned about the UCP's questionable ethics and bizarre moral crusades.

- Finally, Andrew Coyne writes that the most important concern arising from the Libs' SNC-Lavalin scandal is their attempt to normalize political meddling in all types of independent decision-making. Tom Parkin argues that it will be impossible to see our constitutional order as safe without a complete about-face from Justin Trudeau - including genuine contrition under circumstances where's he's treated it first as a strategic possibility to be focus group tested, then something that's entirely beneath him. And the Ottawa Citizen's editorial board points out how the entire remaining Lib caucus opted for a cover-up, rather than maintaining any interest in discovering the truth behind a serious issue.