Thursday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Thomas Unner discusses how Olof Palme's candour offers a needed lesson for Mark Carney and other leaders facing Donald Trump's threats. Patrick Lennox writes that we're already at war with the U.S., even if that hasn't yet been formally acknowledged. And David Coletto finds that a majority of Canadians are neutral or downright positive about loosening our trade ties with the U.S. - even as the Cons keep insisting on handing Trump yet another deal he'll never honour. 

- Marco Turco et al. study how the climate breakdown is producing immense effects on global extreme fire weather. And while John Gibbons offers some hope that a spike in oil prices will help to wean more people off of dirty energy, Damien Gayle reports that the bombing of oil infrastructure in Iran is only making people's continued dependence on fossil fuels even more of an environmental calamity. 

- Armon Aghahosseini et al. study the potential paths forward for energy development, concluding that maximizing immediate investment in clean energy is the superior strategy for both economic and environmental outcomes. But Drew Anderson examines how the UCP's sabotage has set back renewable energy development in Alberta, while Jeff Brady reports on the utilities who are lobbying to prevent the deployment of solar panels in the U.S. 

- Finally, Gabrielle Piche reports on the Kinew government's legislation to implement the right to repair in Manitoba. 

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Alexis Okeowo reports on the plight of women who bravely spoke out in the course of the #metoo movement, only to be shunned as misogyny has been embraced as deliberate policy by the Trump regime and its media sycophants. And Cara Daggett studies the connection between petropolitics, climate denialism and the fostering of toxic masculinity. 

- Jennifer Gray reports on the reality that Phoenix is seeing unprecedented heat and drought. Sarah Shemkus notes that contrary to the spin of the fossil fuel sector, all-electric neighbourhoods are proving to be a boon to housing construction. And Rob Davis reports on the denialist backlash which pushed Oregon to stop mapping out the areas facing the most risk from wildfires, while Kate Yoder discusses the Trump regime's purge of climate data generally.  

- Justin Ling rightly argues that the worst thing Mark Carney could do would be to further tie Canada to the U.S. through a Trump-driven trade agreement. But Luke Savage notes that Carney is already betraying the Canadian public which elected him to stand up to Trump prioritizing corporate ties to the U.S. over human rights and well-being. And David Pugliese reports on Carney's apparent decision to put us even more at the U.S.' mercy by capitulating to its demand to participate in a "golden dome" scheme. 

- Kevin Thomas examines at the problem with a capitalist system based on free capital and trade combined with severe restrictions on people. 

- Finally, Julia Metraux reports on needed steps to ensure that wheelchair users (and other people who necessarily depend on external supports) have a right of repair, rather than seeing their ability to function treated as secondary to the profit motive of corporate monopolies.

Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Julieta Manrique et al. study the prevalence of COVID-19 after infection - and find that even in patients who aren't immunocompromised, it manages to spread and replicate in most organs. Julia Wright, Dick Zoutman, Mark Ungrin and Ryan Tennant discuss how universities are failing to take post-COVID conditions seriously. Brett McKay reports on the hundreds of COVID outbreaks in Alberta acute care facilities in 2023-24 - even as the UCP torqued any reviews to insist it should have done even less. And Freja Kirsebom et al. study the continued effectiveness of COVID vaccines in preventing symptoms and hospital admissions among pregnant individuals.

- Jenna Hennebry writes that the real problem with Canada' temporary foreign worker policy is the systemic vulnerability it imposes on workers - which won't be improved in the slightest by forcing workers to compete for fewer positions.

- Glyn Moody discusses how the first version of right-to-repair legislation in Canada is almost entirely useless since it only allows for single-use fixes rather than any sharing of solutions.

- Finally, Natascha Kennedy highlights how big money is threatening democracy in the UK and elsewhere - and how prohibitions against corporate donations are a necessary element in reducing the danger. And Jon Queally reports on Bernie Sanders' message that the most important priority needs to be to overcome the global oligarchy.

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Saul Elbein discusses the many ways in which the climate breakdown is affecting communities facing far more severe weather events than they've ever experienced before. And Mary Gilbert notes that the U.S. just faced one of the driest months on record, while Valerie Kipnis et. al examine the precarious state of water resources in central Asia.  

- Zoe Williams writes that the relentless hoarding of wealth by billionaires is warping democratic decision-making. And Mona Charen discusses how the wealthiest few are attempting to entrench a Trump-led oligarchy in the U.S. 

- Yushu Zhu and Hanan Ali write that Canada's housing crisis can be traced largely to the fetishization of homeownership and the assumption that property values must constantly be inflated.  

- Lucas Gutterman makes the case for regulation to ensure that consumer electronics aren't designed to be immediately turned to junk based on the manufacturer's whims or negligence.  

- Finally, Joan Westenberg warns of the shrinking of the Internet as non-corporate content becomes perpetually more difficult to find and share. 

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Jenna Wenkoff discusses how "ethical oil" is purely a (risible) marketing concept rather than any meaningful description of actual fossil fuel operations, while Chris Russell discusses how the tar sands' environmental disinformation is even worse than people assume. Ian Urquhart writes that the UCP's fervent ideological aversion to clean energy is resulting in it blocking viable development. And Jeremy Appel reveals the details of Danielle Smith's publicly-funded trip to undermine any climate progress in Dubai. 

- Bob Weber reports on the release of documents showing how the UCP conspired to push open-pit coal mining in the Rocky Mountains without any public scrutiny. And Gregory Beatty discusses how Scott Moe is bent on further endangering Saskatchewan's already-precarious water supply by planning to suck up massive amounts for industrial and irrigation use while undermining the natural wetlands which help protect water quality. 

- Meanwhile, Nature offers a warning that fossil fuel lobbyists are undermining any effort at developing a treaty to account for the dangers of plastics pollution. 

- Adele Peters discusses how thoughtful lawmaking can make a massive difference, as Oregon's right-to-repair law is forcing Apple and other manufacturers to start making part replacement an option rather than pushing people to discard their products and buy new. 

- Finally, Bob McDonald interviews Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly about the latest studies showing COVID-19's long-term impacts on the brain. And Nhung Trinh et al. find that a large set of data from Norway supports the effectiveness of vaccines in reducing the prevalence and severity of long COVID.

Thursday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett discuss why the world can't afford the rich. And Cory Doctorow points out that class-based advocacy for better material conditions tends to be a political winner even in the U.S. - but that it's not generally presented as an option by Democrats determined to present themselves as compliant to the wishes of the corporate class.  

- Gavin Schmidt discusses how the climate breakdown is happening faster and more severely than previously projected. Matthew Rozsa reports on new research identifying the human "fingerprints" associated with rising sea surface temperatures. And Chloe Lucas et al. highlight how children are immersed in the reality of a climate catastrophe in progress which our political class is devoted to denying or minimizing. 

- Meanwhile, Peter Dietsch calls out the fanatical opposition to even restricting fossil fuel advertising as the truly extreme position on climate policy. And Les Whittington highlights how the constant carbon tax bleating from the Cons and their provincial proxies is based entirely on misinformation - though we shouldn't fall into Whittington's trap of treating a modest, small-c conservative pricing scheme as the essence of progressive policy. 

- Drew Anderson contrasts Danielle Smith's fervent insistence on pushing the extreme environmental harm caused by dirty resource extraction and pollution against her choice to ban renewable energy in the name of "pristine viewscapes". And David Barrett and Kelly Black point out how much of the population of western Canada stands to suffer from the UCP's willingness to destroy watersheds in southern Alberta. 

- Finally, Darren Cotton writes about the development of repair cafes as a means to give effect to the right to repair and the principle of reducing waste. 

Monday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Oliver Milman reports on new research showing that shipping, aviation and industry are the three areas where carbon emissions are remaining at their existing levels or growing on a global basis. But Barry Saxifrage notes that Canada is a climate scofflaw as the only G7 country to be spewing more emissions than we were in 1990, while Theresa Beer calls out the provincial governments spending public money trying to demolish the few substantial climate policies which exist to date based on false spin about affordability. 

- Uday Rana discusses how parking mandates are contributing to a lack of affordable housing. But Rachel Cohen notes that many U.S. municipalities are moving past a passive approach, and instead building their own social housing intended to create communities which include all walks of life. 

- Judith Graham writes that the callous decision-making around COVID-19 raises questions about whether the U.S. cares about older adults at all - though it's worth noting the question is probably equally valid if applied more widely to caring about people period. 

- Sean Illing interviews Elizabeth Anderson about the damage wrought by a neoliberal "work ethic" which paints compliant subservience to the interests of capital as the ultimate virtue. And Adam King discusses the need for anti-scab legislation at the provincial level. 

- Finally, Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman reports on the spread of Fixit Clinics as a means of giving effect to the right to repair in California. And Currey McCullough discusses how farmers are being exploited for billions of dollars every year through the greed of equipment providers who exercise monopoly control over repairs and maintenance. 

Wednesday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- David Michaels, Emily Spieler and Gregory Wagner examine how negligent pandemic policies (even when COVID-19 wasn't being treated as a matter of general denialism) resulted in tens of thousands of worker deaths in the US alone. Olivia Man et al. find that prenatal exposure to COVID may produce severe health effects, while Mary Kekatos points out how the continued spread of respiratory viruses increases the risk of heart problems. And Nate Bear discusses why it will never be accurate to treat COVID as "just a cold".

- Oliver Milman reports on new documents showing that the dirty oil industry has had - and suppressed - warning about the damage expected from climate change since at least 1954. And Robert Jones reports on just another oil round of deceit, as oil companies in New Brunswick have been falsely claiming they're subject to higher federal regulatory requirements in order to gouge consumers. 

- Joseph Keller, Manann Donoghoe and Andre Perry write about the climate impacts of AI and other tech industries which pretend there's no cost or environmental harm from consuming immense amounts of energy. Adrienne LaFrance writes about the rise of techno-authoritarianism as the dominant ideology of the tech giants. And Thomas Germain reports on research showing that search results are becoming demonstrably worse due to the combination of increased focus on advertising dollars, and the gaming of search algorithms by spammers.  

- Cory Doctorow writes about the decades-long slumber of regulators - and the hope that they're starting to regain consciousness. And Meghan Smith highlights a few stories which illustrate the value of a right to repair taking priority over corporate control over products. 

- Finally, Rachel Donald and Tim Parrique discuss how individual-level deprivation is entirely the result of grossly distorted distribution rather than a lack of overall output - meaning that the only means to ensure people's needs are met is to focus on redistribution rather than endless growth. 

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Matthew Rosza reports on the continued toll of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, including over 1,000 deaths per week in the U.S. alone along with massive numbers of hospitalizations. Lauren Pelley highlights how health care workers are being burdened with unmanageable case loads and understaffing due to their own illnesses as part of the post-acknowledgement-of-COVID "new norm", while Louella Vaughan and Nigel Edwards implore governments to reverse the trend of emergency services being shuttered for lack of staff. And Joe Vipond, Julia Wright and Dan Furst rightly argue that it's long past time to recognize that the determination to operate in denial of COVID in the name of the almighty dollar has proven disastrous for the economy and public health and well-being alike.  

- Victoria St. Martin reports on the recognition at COP28 that air pollution linked to fossil fuel consumption produces devastating health impacts in addition to precipitating the ongoing climate breakdown. But Soma Marla discusses how fossil fuel conglomerates are dictating the conference's agenda, while Arthur Zhang points out how the oil and gas sector is singlehandedly destroying any hope Canada might have of living up to its climate commitments. 

- Pete Evans reports on the latest Parliamentary hearings into food prices - featuring Loblaws and Walmart both trying to enshrine "the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all" as a settled foundation for public policy.

- Finally, Cory Doctorow warns about the trend of manufacturers unilaterally removing features and downgrading products even after consumers have already bought them - and points out how the law perversely encourages that consumer abuse. 

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Sultan al Jaber and Vanessa Kerry offer a reminder that a climate breakdown in progress represents a foundational danger to human health and well-being. Geoffrey Diehl observes that the root causes of the crisis are greed and strictly-enforced ignorance. Miki Perkins points out that the response of governments has been to shovel more and more free money at the fossil fuel sector to keep spewing the carbon pollution, while Mitchell Beer reports on demands by carbon capture and storage operators for leniency as their promises fall by the wayside. And John Woodside reports on the Parliamentary Budget Office's findings that we could instead bring in billions by taxing windfall profits so the oil sector funds at least part of the cost of repairing its harm to our planet.  

- Kaitlin A. Naughten, Paul R. Holland and Jan De Rydt examine the locked-in loss of ice from West Antarctica through the 21st century. And Catrin Einhorn highlights the scientists who are seeing their life's work disappear as the great extinction takes hold. 

- Cory Doctorow discusses how intellectual property rights and software controls have resulted in our having meaningful ownership over very little of what we buy. And Ethan Sawyer reports that we can add Hallowe'en candy to the list of goods getting more expensive due to corporate greedflation. 

- Finally, Robert Reich writes about the importance of fighting bullying in all of its forms as a precondition to any prospect of social justice. 

Thursday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Damian Carrington reports on new research showing that the cost of damage caused by extreme weather is already upwards of $16 million per hour (and escalating). And Peter Kalmus writes about the need to wind down the fossil fuel industry rather than accepting the loss of a habitable planet. 

- But Helena Horton reports that the UK Cons are joining other right-wing parties in trying to stop the ongoing transition to clean energy. Matt Simmons reports on the BC Energy Regulator's complete failure to enforce any regulatory requirements for gas pipeline construction, while Julia Simone-Rutgers reports on the systematic defunding of environmental monitoring and enforcement in Manitoba. And Andrew Nikiforuk discusses how the UCP is once again trying to sneak dirty coal projects past courts and the public alike. 

- And while governments are going out of their way to cater to the sociopaths looking to sell off humanity's future to make a quick buck, Nina Lakhari, Damien Gayle and Matthew Taylor report that they're also using the power of the state to criminalize climate activism. 

- David Climenhaga discusses how the UCP's choice of private telehealth providers has gone bankrupt, leaving millions without the health care they were forced to accept through corporate means.

- Finally, Mack DeGeurin does report on the approval of a right-to-repair law in California.  

Monday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Bruce Arthur discusses how last week's rallies for bigotry are reflective of a broader social illness which is being encouraged by right-wing parties and politicians. And Charlie Angus writes about his experience on the receiving end of violent authoritarian rhetoric and personal threats.  

- John Lorinc points out that the corruption behind Doug Ford's plans to turn Ontario Place into a spa (and ultimately a casino) includes massive public costs for water and wastewater infrastructure to pump money into the pockets of Ford's buddies. And Lulu Ramadan reports on Boeing's attempts to escape any responsibility to clean up the Duwamish River in Seattle after consistently claiming it as a free dumping ground for chemicals. 

- Taylor Noakes discusses CAPP's utterly misleading spin which claims the oil sector will cut emissions while ignoring its plans to release the tar sands carbon bomb. And the Mercator Research Institute studies how solar energy and storage are both plummeting in price, making a clean energy supply more affordable than dirty fossil fuels even if we weren't going to account for the environmental costs of carbon dumping. 

- Cory Doctorow examines how Apple has blocked users from repairing their devices in order to ensure a continued market based on mandated obsolescence. 

- Finally, Kevin Drum highlights the drastic difference in pay and benefits between unionized and non-unionized workforces in the U.S.' private sector. 

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Lisa Young writes about the stark difference in how Alberta's main party leaders approach the role of women in politics and society. But Drew Anderson laments the lack of a meaningful willingness on the part of any substantial party to engage in an adult conversation on the climate crisis.

- On that front, Clifford Krauss reports on the fossil governments who are standing in the way of a needed clean energy transition, and in fact using their power and the public's money to keep pollution spewing.

- Damian Carrington reports on the IPCC's affordable and achievable path to meeting the promise to limit climate change to 1.5 C - with a shift to less expensive clean energy as the core task. And Nathasha Bulowski reports on the Canadian Labour Congress' push for an ambitious climate plan. 

- John Burn-Murdoch notes that while the pervasiveness presence of guns explains the difference in gun suicides between U.S. states, the rate of homicides also reflects differences in the social trust which Republicans have been working feverishly to destroy.

- Finally, Krista Hessey reports on the benefits of a right to repair - while noting that it's manufacturers who are standing in the way of ensuring products can be maintained and restored to use.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Will Stone writes about the role viral reservoirs may be playing in both prolonging individual long COVID symptoms, and allowing for the development of new variants. Simran Purewal, Kaylee Byers, Kayli Jamieson and Neda Zolfaghari highlight the need for people talking about the effects of long COVID to be believed rather than dismissed. But Apoorva Mandavilli reports on the CDC's choice to simply stop observing the effects of an ongoing pandemic.

- Meanwhile, Pete Evans reports on the latest push by employers to take away the benefits of remote work in order to force daily commutes and constant control on workers. David Macdonald discusses how public sector strikes have represented primarily an attempt to defend real wages from the effects of inflation, while Mitchell Thompson reminds us that Danielle Smith has made clear that the infliction of pain is the point in dealing with education and health care workers. And Paige Oamek talks to some of the younger workers organizing to ensure they're not at the mercy of callous employers.

- Eva Wiseman writes about the folly of trying to match even the most banal forms of consumption by the obscenely wealthy. And Paul Waldman discusses why the right to repair movement may be the unifying point for all kinds of people with a healthy skepticism of corporate control over our lives.

- Tom Perkins reports on research showing that toxic "forever chemicals" are included in the pesticides sprayed on crops.

- Charlie Angus writes that the push toward a clean energy economy has passed the point of theoretical transition to reach the development of large-scale employment. And Brian Potter discusses how nuclear power has done nothing but become more costly with time - making it absolutely useless in the context of plummeting prices for renewables and storage. 

- Finaly, Linda McQuaig writes that Doug Ford's to turn the public Ontario Place into a for-profit spa may eclipse the Highway 407 debacle as the most appalling handover of public assets for private profit in Ontario's history.

Wednesday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Ritika Goel, Vanessa Redditt and Michaela Beder discuss how the Ford PCs are cruelly taking health care away from the marginalized people who need it most. And CBC News reports on the preferred right-wing model of privatized profit centres threatening patients into paying for upsold services. 

- But on the bright side, Harold Meyerson writes that California is taking steps toward the public production of insulin and other medication to ensure that corporate profit motives don't restrict access to needed medicine. 

- Francis Sedgmore points out how our already-worrisome expectations for an overheating Arctic region may underestimate actual temperature changes. And Moritz Langer et al. examine the threat posed by the thawing of permafrost at sites with industrial contamination. 

- Damian Carrington reports on a new study which concludes that the UK is completely unprepared for the readily foreseeable effects of a climate breakdown. And Kristoffer Tigue reports on the corporate interests (and their puppet governments) who insisted on watering down science-based recommendations in the latest IPCC report. 

- Finally, Adam Minter writes about the growing push to ensure a right to repair consumer electronics. And Michael Woods reports on the preliminary steps toward its implementation in the recent federal budget. 

Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Carrie Arnold examines our current state of knowledge about the prevalence and effects of long COVID. Tanya Lewis discusses the particularly acute risks COVID-19 creates in the course of a pregnancy. And Violet Blue writes about the dissonance involved in an ongoing pandemic having been erased from our culture. 

- Shandel Menezes reports on the wholesale corporate buyout of what was previously affordable housing, with the result that a basic human need and right is being priced out of reach. Cory Doctorow discusses how dollar stores and other corporate giants are systematically squeezing out every possible dime (and undermining every possible competitor) from rural and underserved communities. And Marc Fawcett-Atkinson points out how the federal government's current subsidy for groceries in northern communities services primarily to goose profits rather than to make food available. 

- Robert Kuttner discusses what comes next as neoliberalism is exposed as having nothing to offer the vast majority of people other than exploitation and precarity. And Martin Regg Cohn argues that the future of democracy depends on our winning battles for information, truth and equality over well-funded forces pushing the opposite of each.  

- Finally, Scharon Harding reports on the EU's proposed effort to entrench some right of repair for consumer electronics - though its plans are based on keeping control in the hands of manufacturers rather than consumers and independent providers. 

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Eric Anderson writes that capitalism has been developed to exploit psychological vulnerability for profit. And Ludvig Weir and Gabriel Zucman highlight how the corporate profits shifted between countries for the purpose of tax avoidance approached a trillion dollars in 2019 (and likely soared past that milestone since). 

- Bill Curry reports on the PBO's findings that the Libs are spending a record $21.4 billion to outsource public service functions. And Jennifer Carr discusses how the outsourcing of public sector capacity results in both high costs and severe consequences for government's ability to make decisions in the public interest. 

- Maximilian Alvarez talks to railroad workers who have long been warning of the potential for derailments and associated risks to public health and safety as regulatory standards have been slashed in the name of profits. And Chris Isidore reports on Norfolk Southern's continued plan to hand over a thousand times as much money to shareholders in buybacks than to victims of the East Palestine chemical spill and fire. 

- Lindsay Ellis discusses how noncompete clauses have been turned into a systematic attack on worker wages - and how the U.S.' plan to ban them can help. And Leland Glenna writes about the right-to-repair laws being developed to ensure purchasers aren't helpless in the face of arbitrary corporate controls on the use and repair of consumer goods.  

- Alex Hemingway and Simon Pek discuss the problem with housing land use hearings which tend to include only objectors rather than the people who would benefit from approvals. 

- Finally, Sarah Gordon points out how drug decriminalization will improve the well-being and treatment options for people who use them - while also noting that there's still far to go from the standpoint of harm reduction. 

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Paul Krugman discusses the need for people who have been responsible about limiting the spread of COVID-19 to start speaking out and taking action to ensure that the reckless and nihilistic aren't able to impose avoidable disease and death. Adia Benton, Maimuna Majumder and Gavin Yamey write that the selfishness of rich countries - both in refusing to allow lower-income countries to produce their own vaccines, then hoarding the ones which are manufactured - stands to extend the ongoing pandemic until as late as 2028. And Ashleigh Stewart reports on David Fisman's resignation from Ontario's science advisory table due to Doug Ford's refusal to provide accurate information about an impending fourth wave. 

- Meanwhile, Paul Sakkal and Aisha Dow write about the importance of a ventilation revolution to stop the spread of COVID-19 through indoor environments including workplaces and schools. 

- Frederik Pleitgen, Claudia Otto, Angela Dewan and Mohammed Tawfeeq write that much of the Middle East may soon be uninhabitable as limited water reserves disappear due to our climate breakdown. Jonathan Tirone notes that newly-constructed refineries will lock in additional carbon pollution for decades to come.  And Kevin Crowley discusses how the fossil fuel industry is splitting in its response to global determination to protect our planet - though it can't escape notice that it's the worst climate offenders who are determined to double down on spewing greenhouse gas emissions.  

- Tony Seskus writes about the need for farmers (and consumers generally) to have a right to repair, rather than seeing major purchases rendered worthless by the whims of corporate intellectual property rules. 

- Matt Bruenig highlights how gratuitous Republican cuts to unemployment insurance in the U.S. led to added poverty and precarity without producing any of the promised increase in available employment. 

- Finally, Linda McQuaig and Neil Brooks comment on the need to tax billionaires out of existence, rather than allowing them to dictate public policy in the interest of extreme wealth accumulation. 

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Kenyon Wallace reports on new modelling showing a real risk of yet another wave of COVID spread in Ontario - even as widespread immunity just a few months of remotely responsible government away. Julie Steenhuysen and Kate Kelland point out how an increasing number of variants is complicating the fight against COVID-19. And Marieke Walsh and Greg McArthur discuss how Canada's vaccination process has been set back due to our reliance on global supply chains.

- Chris Hedges writes about the multiple prominent examples of social murder in progress - with COVID-19 serving only as a particularly immediate and vivid example of the phenomenon which also defines the climate crisis and other avoidable crises of public health and welfare. And John Calvert discusses the people killed by Texas' reckless deregulation of vital infrastructure - along with the propensity of Canadian conservatives to push us in the same direction.  

- Meanwhile, the Globe and Mail's editorial board calls out Doug Ford for choosing to try to renormalize cash-for-access politics. And Darren Bernhardt reports on the Manitoba PCs' unprecedented power grab in seeking to ram a large number of dubious bills through the legislative process while keeping their contents secret from opposition parties and the public.

- Emmanuel Fulgence Drabo, Grace Eckel, Samuel Ross, Michael Brozic et al. are the latest to demonstrate that a Housing First system which provides residents with a secure home produces a substantial return on investment in social and economic terms.

- Finally, Richard Denniss writes that Australia's regulation of tech giants - which was met with an initial attempt at resistance followed by ultimate acceptance - demonstrates that we're not helpless in the face of the power of large corporations. And Adam Smith discusses the EU's latest move to empower the public by ensuring that consumer electronics are reasonably durable and can be repaired - rather than being part of a cycle of rapid planned obsolescence.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- The Globe and Mail's editorial board is rightly aghast at Doug Ford's choice to facilitate the spread of the coronavirus as a devastating fall wave hits, while Bruce Arthur writes that there may be no choice but to impose a lockdown as the cost of doing nothing becomes more glaring. And Andrew Leach rightly calls out Jason Kenney's attempt to declare a spike in infection to be a matter of personal responsibility, while taking no responsibility whatsoever for his government's failings. 

- Meanwhile, Stephanie Taylor reports on new Saskatchewan Health Minister Paul Merriman's worrisome takes on COVID-19 - including that anti-mask protesting is just fine, and that the availability of field hospitals (which are better described as warehouses) means we shouldn't worry about the effect of the pandemic on our health care system. And Colin D'Mello reports on warnings about Ontario's health care system, which may soon see surgeries and other necessary care cancelled again in order to prioritize COVID-19 treatment. 

- Brady Lang reports on the alarming increase in Saskatchewan drug overdose deaths to over one a day so far in 2020. And Kathrin Glosel offers a reminder that a full Housing First strategy not only saves lives, but also saves money compared to the cost of jails and medical treatment. 

- Meanwhile, Lisa Adkins and Martijn Konings note that the gap between the cost of housing and the wages available from work has grown to the point where middle-class workers are having to rely on inheritances to buy a first home.

- Paola Rose-Aquino writes about the spread of the right-to-repair movement across borders and party lines.

- David Pugliese exposes the plans of Canada's military to set up a propaganda unit to influence public opinion and behaviour. And Jim Bronskill reports on the RCMP's continued stonewalling of a Civilian Review and Complaints Commission report into its covert surveillance of environmental activists.

- Finally, Brent Patterson discusses how we could put public resources to far better use funding a Green New Deal rather than gratuitous military purchasing. And Darrin Qualman examines how climate change stands to harm agriculture in Saskatchewan.