Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- E. Wesley Ely discusses the developing - and worrisome - body of knowledge of how COVID-19 affects the brain, while Korin Miller reports on the link between COVID and diabetes. William Brangham and Dorothy Hastings talk to people living with long COVID about the devastation it's caused with little public attention. And Brianne Foley reports on the latest after-the-fact data dump showing that the Moe government's consistent minimization of an ongoing pandemic has pushed people to stop taking the most basic precautions including getting updated vaccines.

- Megan Ogilvie and Kate Allen survey experts as to the most immediate priorities for investments in health care. And Armine Yalnizyan and Pat Armstrong write about the dangers of the profitization of care - and the need for protections against the level of corporate ownership that's permitted as Canada's health care system is currently structured.

- Eugene Robinson writes that the East Palestine toxic release shows the dangers of prioritizing a quick buck over people's health and well-being.

- Arielle Samuelson and Emily Atkin call out some of the propaganda tactics being used by the fossil gas industry to try to lock us into decades of carbon pollution. And Markham Hislop points out how Danielle Smith is predictably treating fossil fuels as her only priority by setting up a panel with zero representatives connected to any other energy source.

- Finally, Justin Ling and Catherine Tunney each report on the findings of the Public Order Emergency Commission that a declaration of emergency was warranted to respond to the threat of the #FluTruxKlan (due particularly to the combination of fecklessness and outright sedition from right-wing forces). And Robert Libman discusses how Pierre Poilievre's rhetoric about freedom is absolutely hollow given his eagerness to support prejudice-based crackdowns on the rights which are actually under threat.

Musical interlude

Andain - Promises

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Robert Reich discusses how the concentration of power in the hands of the U.S.' capitalist class has reached levels not see since the gilded age - and how improvements in general access to consumer goods (driven in part by increased work participation and debt) doesn't justify or ameliorate the harm from that top-down control. And Josh Rubin reports on the abuse of the CEWS "blank cheque" by major corporations who used public pandemic funding to inflate profits and share prices. 

- David Macdonald highlights the track record showing that no-strings-attached money demanded by the provinces for health care is highly likely to be diverted toward tax giveaways and other ends. And Annie Waldman reports on the evidence of how the world's largest medical device company Medtronic has pushed for the overuse of its products with little regard for anybody's health. 

- Emma McIntosh offers an explainer on induced demand in pointing out the folly of building more highways rather than developing transit plans which actually help people get where they need to go. And Oliver Wainwright discusses how anybody outside of the alt-right fever swamps should see 15-minute cities as an eminently reasonable planning principle. 

- Finally, Robin Abcarian writes that the bigoted attack on pronouns (and other simple elements of basic recognition for trans people) are the result of the deliberate sacrifice of human dignity to political opportunism. 

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Charles Schmidt reports on new research findings showing that repeat infections with COVID-19 result in substantially elevated risks of death, hospitalization and long COVID. Stephani Sutherland discusses the emerging treatment of long COVID as a neurological disease. KACL reports on research connecting past COVID infection to increased risk of diabetes. And Blake Murdoch writes that treating children (or anybody else) as being invulnerable to COVID in the face of all available evidence represents a profound devaluation of their health and well-being. 

- Meanwhile, Ricardo Tranjan and Randy Robinson highlight how Ontario has the means to end poverty, with a sharp decrease in poverty rates in 2020 showing what could be accomplished if we cared enough to provide people with even a minimal standard of living. And Stephen Wentzell reports on the findings of the Ottawa People's Commission that authorities chose to prioritize accommodating an occupying #FluTruxKlan force over the basic necessities of life for residents. 

- Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa discuss the environmental disaster in East Palestine as reflecting the prioritization of corporate profits over human health. 

- Finally, Damian Carrington reports on the accelerating loss of Antarctic sea ice as just one example of the extreme climate trends which is showing the profound damage carbon pollution is doing to our planet. 

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Toying cats.

Tuesday Evening Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Henry Mance talks to Mariana Mazzucato about the big con by private consultants who have been treated as a substitute for a knowledgeable civil service without having any expertise in actually serving the public. And Cathy Taylor writes about the need to invest in non-profit rather than corporatized supports for people living in poverty. 

- Moira Welsh and Clare Pasieka each report on AdvantAge's report on exploitative practices by temp agencies who poach staff from the public sector, then charge exorbitant rates to now-desperate care homes. Joel Lexchin discusses how the pharmaceutical and insurance industries are standing in the way of universal prescription drug coverage in order to preserve their own profits off of people's need for medicine. And Sarah Rieger interviews Arshy Mann about Canada's grim status as three monopolies in a trenchcoat. 

- Meanwhile, Tim Redmond reports on draft plans indicating that San Francisco could afford to set up a public bank with as little as $20 million in startup capital - ensuring that all citizens have access to the financial services they need without being at the mercy of the corporate sector. 

- Finally, Madeleine de Trenquayle interviews Naomi Klein about the inextricable connection between economic inequality and climate injustice. Naveena Savidasam discusses how the East Palestine rail calamity underscores the needless dangers arising from our reliance on petrochemicals and plastics. And Carl Meyer highlights how the tar sands sector is engaged in another exercise in greenwashing - this time at the expense of tens of billions of public dollars - in order to run decades off the clock while avoiding any plan to build out cleaner energy alternatives. 

Monday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Ann Mallen offers a personal account of the effect of the continued COVID threat on people who are already immunocompromised, while Richard Woodbury talks to Nova Scotia seniors at risk who are rightly concerned that pandemic denialism amounts to a loss of recognition of their humanity. Kelly Fearnly writes that there's no excuse for removing even the most basic protections like masking in health care facilities when we know of an immediate threat to public health. And Cara Murez reports on some good news, in the form of research showing the continuing effectiveness of Paxlovid against newer variants which have proven resistant to other treatments. 

- Meanwhile, Ian Sample reports on the conclusion of chief medical officer of England Chris Whitty that indoor air in public places needs to be monitored and improved. 

- Jean Swanson discusses the need for vacancy control to ensure that everybody can afford a home, rather than establishing protections limited to individuals in particular units which allow for systemic price gouging every time a unit becomes vacant.  

- Tom Wilson and Derek Brower weigh in on the reality that big oil is laughing all the way to the bank while tearing up its climate commitments - and being rewarded for doing so. And Brendan Boyd and Marielle Papin discuss how to ensure people see the benefit of a just transition - though it's also essential to keep an eye on actual public opinion, rather than allowing fossil fuel magnates and their fully-owned political subsidiaries to be the judge of climate action. 

- Finally, Laure Brimbal discusses how adults tend to lay the groundwork for cultures of deception by judging children more harshly for telling blunt truths than for lying to get along. And Daniel Drache and Marc Froese point out how authoritarian politicians are using that prioritization of in-group belonging over general ethics to seize and wield power. 

Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Maura Hohman discusses how COVID-19 has been found to cause increased heart problems in young people (among other harm to health) - even as it's being allowed to inflict that damage population-wide. And Lidia Morawska et al. examine how warnings about the airborne transmission of COVID were ignored by the people responsible for assessing the threat and protecting the public.

- David Sirota, Julia Rock, Rebecca Burns and Matthew Cunningham-Cook report that the East Palestine, OH train derailment (with associated fires, explosions and toxic chemical releases) was traceable directly to corporate lobbying for deregulation of safety standards. And Tom Perkins writes that the disaster should be a wake-up call as to the need for protection - though there were obvious recent precedents which would have alerted any halfway competent regulator as to the dangers of undermining rail safety.

- Paris Marx writes that a series of developments in artificial intelligence don't figure to eliminate the need for human labour - though they do figure to be used as an excuse to make work more precarious. And Marietje Schaake rightly notes that large-scale layoffs in the tech sector should be treated as an opportunity to recruit well-trained workers into the public service.

- Finally, Rumneek Johal reports on the connections between the puritanical and for-profit "recovery" sector trumpeted as an alternative to harm reduction and concern for people's health, and the right-wing politicians pouring public money into the former over the latter.

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Paula Span discusses how older Americans (and their peers elsewhere) have been left to navigate the pandemic with no consideration for their health and safety. Kailin Yin et al. examine the ways in which long COVID can affect immune system function. And Linda Geddes highlights the risk that COVID-19 is making people more vulnerable to bacterial and fungal threats.

- Jim Stanford writes about the problems with treating human beings as mere commodities in building economic policy around employers' desire for access to cheap labour. And the Canadian Press reports that even RBC Economics' analysis which is being cited as an excuse to hike interest rates shows that wages have fallen short of keeping up with inflation.

- Grace Blakeley rightly argues that the consistent pattern of oil companies abandoning their climate commitments even while swimming in windfall profits shows that free market will never solve climate change. And needless to say, the petropolitical choice to funnel money to fossil fuel corporations only makes matters worse - with David Climenhaga and Dean Bennett each exploring how the UCP's RStar scandal represents a particularly egregious example of polluter-paid governance.

- Meanwhile, Roshan Abraham reports on the laughable attempt by the oil-allied alt-right to turn walkable cities into an object of conspiracy theory and hate.

- Finally, Cory Doctorow discusses the regressive "time tax" resulting from wealth translating into constant service and convenience while people of less means face far greater time impositions trying to navigate the necessities of life.

Musical interlude

Metric - I Will Never Settle

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Philip Ritchie writes about new research into natural receptors which may help limit infection by COVID-19 and other viruses, while Alice Klein reports on the development of an inhaled powder which could line the respiratory tract to provide an additional layer of protection. But Spencer Kimball's report on Pfizer's windfall profits (racked up as it inflates the cost of vaccines and treatments) serves as a warning as to why the means of protecting public health can't be put into corporate hands.  

- Meanwhile, David Moscrop weighs in on Loblaws' profiteering as it falsely blames others for inflated prices while bringing in obscene profits. 

- Robert Reich points out that the current corporate stranglehold on public policy is the result of the working class losing sight of the importance of class politics during the Keynesian consensus. And Canadians for Tax Fairness examines how corporations exploited that dynamic to turn massive COVID subsidies  into cash cows while public anger was selectively directed at individuals receiving money to survive. 

- Linda McQuaig discusses how private foundations serve to further the power and shelter the assets of the wealthy few while actual charities struggle to stay afloat. And Angella MacEwen offers a warning that the "employee ownership trust" system mentioned in yesterday's post is designed primarily to funnel money to departing capitalists rather than to give workers any meaningful benefit. 

- Finally, Umair Irfan reports on new research showing that even a relatively modest transition to electric vehicles can lead to substantial improvements in respiratory health. 

Thursday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Scott Rivkees writes that COVID-19 denialism has come to dominate public policy around an ongoing viral threat, while Kelly Skjerven reports that the relentless minimization of the ongoing pandemic has led Canadians to stop getting updated vaccinations. Eric Reinhart discusses how doctors are understandably demoralized by systemic failures which prevent them from helping to treat patients. And Joyce Sampson writes that there are plenty of benefits to face masks even beyond the reduced transmission of (and infection by) COVID. 

- Kat Echner comments on the potential for employee ownership trusts to allow employees to share in the benefit from their work. And Jon Brodkin reports on Apple's violations of employee rights in preventing workers from gathering wage data or discussing working conditions.  

- Jen Hassum writes about the need for progressives to recognize and channel people's rightful anger at a system rigger against them - rather than allowing the Cons to coast on that sentiment while planning to make matters worse. 

- Meanwhile, Martin Wolf discusses the advantages of a land value tax to ensure idle assets don't exacerbate inequality. And Guio Jacinto makes the case for industrial policy (dealing with steel and other vital inputs) to ensure that Canada rebuilds an industrial base while transitioning to a clean economy. 

- Finally, Pete Evans highlights the juxtaposition between record fossil fuel profits and attempts to walk back previous climate commitments, while Alex Lawson takes note of the particularly glaring profit-taking by BP as it breaks emission reduction promises. Julia Levin points out the continued lack of an evidentiary basis to think carbon capture will accomplish anything but greenwashing continued environmental destruction. And Drilled News surveys the oil industry's determination to bully people into believing we can't live without their exploitation. 

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Expressive cats.

Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Emma Beddington rightly questions the determination of the powers that be to pretend that COVID-19 never happened - though her attempt to treat an ongoing pandemic as merely a past issue is itself misplaced. Megan Ford discusses long COVID's especially damaging impact on nurses. And C. Raina McIntyre et al. offer a reminder of the role masks play in reducing spread (despite a renewed wave of spin to the contrary). 

- The Guardian calls out the latest attempt by the UK Cons to declare a policy of perpetual booms for capital owners and doom for workers. And Baher Kamal comments on the desperate need to ensure the wealthy around the world pay their fair share as inequality continues to worsen. 

- David Olive rightly questions why the oil patch would think for a second that it can bank massive windfall profits at consumers' expense, then turn around and demand that every available public dollar be handed over as a subsidy for carbon capture schemes. Anupriya Dasgupta discusses how the PR industry has transferred its tobacco playbook into manufacturing equally destructive anti-science propaganda on behalf of the fossil fuel industry. And Caroline Orr Bueno highlights the role of Russian state media as the primary foreign state sponsor of the #FluTruxKlan (which was of course a joint operation with the oil industry). 

- Meanwhile, Andrew Rawnsley notes that an obsession with extending dirty energy production is leaving the UK and other countries far behind international peers in building an economy for the future. 

- Finally, Umair Haque discusses the psychological effects of life in an age of avoidable extinction. 

Monday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Catherine Albright et al. study how the wide transmission of COVID-19 - due in no small part to the "let 'er rip" mindset of far too many governments - has facilitated the development of new variants which escape existing immunity and treatments. And Fisher Phillips summarizes new, permanent California regulations for COVID-19 safety - which are far from ideal in relaxing standards and imposing costs on workers, but at least reflect the recognition that the dangers require ongoing remedial steps.

- Danielle Martin, Edward Greenspon and Geogina Black write about the need for every Canadian to have access to primary health care (even as provincial governments make nothing but excuses for letting access erode). 

- Ricardo Tranjan calls out the landlords who have chosen to inflate the cost of a home - and the governments who have chosen to enable them to do so. The Canadian Press reports on new data showing that upwards of 30% of homes are now owned by investors rather than residents in some Canadian provinces, signaling how a necessity of life is becoming increasingly commodified and put out of reach of the working class. And Rebecca Zandbergen interviews Juha Kaakinen about Finland's success in meeting the right to housing while simultaneously saving money by funding the construction of housing directly, rather than counting on developer-based bank shots as the only means of increasing supply. 

- Philippe Van Parijs writes about Pranab Bardhan's A World of Insecurity, and particularly its recognition that a secure basic income would work wonders in mitigating that insecurity which has given rise to the forces of fascism and hate. 

- Finally, David Moscrop discusses the connection between dwindling trust in public institutions and future well-being, and the understandable concern that power is increasingly being used to benefit the wealthy at the expense of everybody else. 

Musical interlude

Everything But The Girl - Five Fathoms

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- David Wallace-Wells writes about the continued excess mortality in the U.S. beyond the million-plus deaths already attributed to COVID-19. Blair Williams calls out the "COVID hegemony" which has seen the wealthy and powerful downplay an ongoing pandemic in order to foist intolerable costs and risks on workers. Ian Welsh writes that we should be nothing but embarrassed at humanity for its collective failure in addressing a widespread and obvious threat to everybody's health. And Umair Haque notes that rather than being back to some pre-pandemic "normal", we've stumbled into the era of the polycrisis, while Zoe Cohen discusses the self-destructiveness of pursuing economic growth at all costs.  

- Julia Doubleday points out how a lack of accurate and updated information about the known effects of COVID has opened the door for misinformation to fill the vacuum. And Jaigris Hodson and Andrea Gazilia offer suggestions as to how to avoid falling prey to misinformation - though as is so often the case, we shouldn't treat individual measures as a full response to a systemic problem. 

- Geordie Dent writes that an influx of foreign money and a failure to build social housing units are primary culprits in the escalation of Canadian housing prices far past what residents can afford. 

- Mitchell Beer discusses the conclusion of the Net Zero Advisory Board that a cap on greenhouse gas emissions from oil and gas is a must for Canada to meet its 2030 targets. 

- Finally, Sindhu Sundar and Katherine Long discuss the findings of the U.S. Department of Labor that Amazon's "gamification" of its warehouses serves to make work even more dangerous than it would otherwise be.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Nicoletta Lanese reports on a new analysis showing that COVID-19 has become a leading cause of death among U.S. children. Ewen Callaway discusses what will be needed from the next generation of vaccines to respond to an evolved threat - but as Gregg Gonsalves notes, the Biden administration is fixated on setting an end date for an ongoing emergency with grave implications for any public health response. And the Star's editorial board highlights the immense cost of misinformation, both in relation to COVID and in general. 

- Heidi Cuda discusses the need to model and encourage action based on empathy. But Caitlin Johnstone rightly argues that we can't expect a purge of a specific set of corrupt actors to accomplish much when we've set up our power structures to reward assholery. 

- David Armstrong, Patrick Rucker and Maya Miller report on a particularly galling example of a private health insurer refusing coverage - through a combination of strategic bureaucracy and false information - for the medication needed to deal with an individual's ulcerative colitis.

- Meanwhile, Zak Vescera and Moira Wyton report on the increase in violence toward health care workers in British Columbia, as frontline care providers bear the brunt of frustration with systemic failings. 

- Radley Balko writes about the dangers of "elite" police units which are removed from normal oversight based on the false promise of crime prevention. And Katie Hyslop reports on the false assurances and explanations given to try to keep funding flowing to police in Vancouver schools. 

- Finally, Gabriel Levine studies the effectiveness of regulations aimed at structural risks which need to be designed to survive the vagaries of politics. 

Wednesday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Crawford Kilian writes about the urgent need to prioritize and invest in public health and the social determinants of health - both to deal with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and to generally prevent health issues from reaching the point of requiring acute care from an overwhelmed health care system. But the Canadian Press reports that instead of demonstrating any foresight, the Moe government delayed any cooperation with the federal government - including asking for available assistance - until long after a crisis was locked in. 

- Seth Borenstein and Saul Elbein each report on new studies showing that we're set to blow past climate tipping points within a decade (and haven't made a meaningful dent in reducing emissions to change course). And James Hansen et al. study (PDF) the dangerous amount of warming that's already "in the pipeline". 

- Meanwhile, Tamara Iungman et al. examine how urban green infrastructure can reduce experienced temperatures and produce health benefits for residents. 

- Luke LeBrun reports on the findings of the Ottawa People's Commission (as opposed to the IDU Whitewashing Commission) as to the effects of the #FluTruxKlan on the people of Ottawa. And Jeremy Appel reports on the connection between a key Edmonton developer lobbyist and the antivax convoy. 

- Finally, Max Fawcett warns that Jacinda Ardern's resignation signals a risk that the increased threat of violence from the anti-democratic right will drive women in particular out of involvement in politics. 

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Jumpy cats.