Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Stephanie Soucheray discusses new research showing how people with existing health problems are at substantially higher risk of long COVID. And Helen Floersh points out a new study on how different COVID-19 variants are adapting to evade immunity. 

- George Monbiot writes about the oil industry's constant lobbying and propaganda aimed at keeping us addicted to fossil fuels even as they poison us and destroy our living environment. And Gary Fuller points out how the trend toward larger vehicles results in more pollution and more dangerous roads. 

- Bryan Walsh notes that on a global scale, any gains against extreme poverty have slowed to a crawl (even as the top-end wealth accumulation which is spun as helping the cause of raising lower-level incomes continues to accelerate). 

- Oshan Jarow highlights how the US was able to put a massive dent in child poverty in the midst of a pandemic by lifting restrictions on access to social benefits - only to push children back into deprivation at the first available opportunity. And Connie Mason and Leah Hamilton examine the roots of the "parents' rights" language being used as a pretext for attacking and outing vulnerable children. 

- Finally, Thomas Zimmer discusses how a "polarization" frame gives cover to the cultivation of violent extremism on the right. 

Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Joshua Cohen writes that the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the first sustained streak of declining  global life expectancy in over 60 years - even as governments everywhere attempt to pretend the threat has passed. And the Washington Post's editorial board offers a reminder of the need to keep masking in order to reduce both the spread and severity of COVID. 

- Joel Lexchin writes about the lack of regulation of pharmaceutical advertising in Canada. And Andre Picard salutes British Columbia's progress in making contraception universally and freely available, while imploring other provinces to follow suit. 

- Owen Schalk discusses how the Libs' fossil fuel subsidies are merely providing fuel for an ongoing climate emergency. Damian Carrington reports on the "super-emitting" methane leaks could singlehandedly push the Earth past its carbon budget to stay under 1.5 degrees of warming. And Jeff Masters and Bob Henson explain why even relatively small temperature increases result in significantly more severe weather. 

- Gordon Laxer writes that while Canada should be investigation foreign interference in our elections, we should be paying more attention to the corporate actors who do so with a veneer of local presence while directing our policies for the benefit of foreign owners. 

- Amy Hanauer notes that the best way to address concerns about public debt is to make sure the rich pay their fair share. 

- Finally, Alexander Hinton writes that spin about "lone wolf" extremist attacks serve as a dangerous distraction from the networks of eliminationist rhetoric which invariably underlie the danger. 

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Ed Yong rightly questions how the U.S. (like Canada) has come to see a large number of preventable COVID-19 deaths as normal. Hannah Rosenblum et al. study the effects of coronavirus vaccines and find that even reported adverse events were largely mild. And Pam Belluck reports on the growing body of research showing that COVID has can do lasting damage to the brain. 

- Meanwhile, Elizabeth Chuck reports on new research showing that about half of the U.S.' population has suffered neurological damage from lead in gasoline. And Andre Picard discusses how the COVID pandemic resulted in a surprising increase in traffic violence.

- Mark Howden, Joy Pereira and Roberto Sanchez discuss how we're falling further and further behind the steps needed both to avoid a complete climate breakdown, and to adapt to the damage we've already done to our planet. And  Keith Stewart writes that the way to put an end to wars caused by fossil fuel supplies is to stop relying on them. 

- Finally, David Moscrop notes that the #FluTruxKlan has offered us yet another indication of the need for a stronger response to right-wing extremism. 

Monday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Doug Cuthand writes that falsely pretending we're "back to normal" in the midst of a pandemic does nothing but put people at needless risk. CBC Radio talks to experts about what we should be doing with vaccine passports, and finds that if any change is in order it's to ensure that the definition of being vaccinated includes the receipt of booster doses. And Ian Welsh writes that there's no way to describe people fighting against public health protections other than unambiguously pro-death.  

- Mohy-Dean Tabbara, Jennefer Laidley and Garima Talwar Kapoor point out how single people living in deep poverty have been neglected in the design of pandemic supports (even before governments started slashing those in the name of forcing people back to unsafe work).  

- Robert Danisch warns that a foreign-funded extremist movement should push Canada to start reckoning with the collapse of democracy in the U.S. CBC Radio discusses the perversion of the concept of "freedom" fuelling the #FluTruxKlan's rhetoric. And Mitchell Thompson writes about Ted Byfield's legacy as one of the people most responsible for laying the groundwork for reactionary extremism in Canada.  

- Finally, George Monbiot calls out the UK Cons for using crocodile tears about affordability for the poor as an excuse to shovel profits toward the fossil fuel sector. And The Energy Mix highlights how a methane feedback loop may be causing a climate breakdown on an even more rapid pace than we'd previously anticipated.