Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- William Anderson sets out a few of the most important realities about the Kraken COVID-19 variant and its place within the ongoing pandemic. Glen Pyle and Jennifer Huang confirm that infection results in a far greater risk of myocarditis than vaccination. And Julia Doubleday weighs in on the fact that the wealthy and powerful gathered in Davos demanded exactly the preventative measures for themselves that they've denied the rest of us.

- Meanwhile, Steven Lewis discusses how a focus on ensuring everybody has access to primary health care would alleviate both health inequalities and burdens throughout our health care system. But Taylor Noakes writes that the federal government may need to take the lead in building a public system where conservative premiers are solely interested in slashing and privatizing.

- David Macdonald offers a thorough look at which industries and recipients are reaping the spoils from inflation in Canada - with corporate profits predictably the main beneficiary. And Jim Stanford corroborates that conclusion with a look at how unit profit costs have soared while wages have barely budged.

- Finally, Michael Barnard discusses the decades of experience with nuclear power which make it clear it can't compete in a fair comparison to renewable energy.

Musical interlude

Marshmello, Halsey - Be Kind

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Sara Berg discusses what U.S. doctors wish the public understood about COVID-19 - including the dangers of reinfection and the continued need for protective measures. Daniel Sarah Karatsik writes about the consequences of a decimated working class as movement organizing has to push deeper into "hidden publics" to address the most pressing problems. And Walker Bragman explores the massive pools of dark money funding anti-public health conspiracies, while Meghan Grant and Elise von Scheel report on the attempt by Danielle Smith's office to use the power of government to interfere in prosecutions for violent insurrection. 

- Lisa Young points out where the UCP's concurrent decision to slant a politicized inquiry against COVID action fits into its wider plans. And Phil Tank discusses how the Moe government has relied on spin and misdirection to avoid answering for its pitiful management of Saskatchewan even by conservative standards. 

- Jack Hauen reports on the belated recognition that Maple and other private health care operators are blatantly exploiting loopholes in the Canada Health Act. Robert Hiltz recognizes that Doug Ford and other right-wing premiers are deliberately undermining any public health care system so its spoils can be turned into corporate profit centers, while Liam Casey reports on the loud and urgent warnings from hospitals that a plan to rely on private surgery clinics will only result in even more needed workers being lost from the public system. And Sheila Block points out how much more capacity Ontario in particular could build merely by funding health care at average levels. 

- Carolyn Greene, Katharina Maier and Marta-Marika Urbanik offer a reminder of the harm being done by the closure of harm reduction sites. 

- Zak Vescera discusses how efforts to better include women in the construction trades are limited by a failure to make basic safety equipment available to them.

- Finally, David Klepper reports on the escalating climate misinformation since Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter. And Geoff Dembicki reports on Shell Canada's choice to reward a history of participation in climate denial. 

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Kelsey Piper writes about the U.S.' memory-holing of the successes of a vaccine program which resulted in exceptionally quick development and distribution of effective COVID vaccines (and should have set a precedent for future pandemic planning). 

- Dustin Cook and Mike Hager note that while Doug Ford tries to claim there's no alternative to turning surgeries into a profit center, B.C. is instead achieving actual improvements by investing its public health care system. And Ryan McGreal discusses how the structure of Canadian health care - including the concessions to profit-seeking baked in from the start - is facilitating the push to privatize. 

- Meanwhile, Richard Murphy points out that one-time lump sums being offered by the UK's Cons as a substitute for fair wages are intended only to lock workers into longer-term reductions in real pay. And Jeremy Appel writes about new CCPA research showing that the largest beneficiary of inflation in Canada has been the resource extraction section - which has seen massive windfall profits while passing virtually nothing along to workers. 

- Max Fawcett discusses how Danielle Smith is lying to Albertans about a just transition in order to keep public policy skewed toward the continued enrichment of oil and gas tycoons. And Hannah Ritchie points out the absurdity of spin attempting to justify continued reliance on dirty energy (and environmental destruction associated with its extraction) by complaining about the far lesser amount of mining required to supply clean alternatives. 

- Simon Enoch points out a couple of prime examples of Saskatchewan's corporate-owned politicians substituting meaningless words for policy which does anything to benefit people - including the Moe government's publicity blitz around the word "sustainable" in lieu of any plan to build an economy which is consistent with anything short of climate disaster. 

- Finally, Cat Zakrzewski, Cristiano Lima and Drew Harwell report on what the U.S. House of Representatives' January 6 committee learned about the actions of social media giants in allowing violent rhetoric to appease the alt-right. 

Wednesday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- The World Health Organization has updated its guidelines for COVID-19 prevention and response - including recommendations for masking and isolation periods even when these have been largely abandoned by governments. 

- Mitchell Thompson reports on the Ford PCs' plans for health care privatization which include facilitating corporate providers in upselling costly and unnecessary services to patients. And the Star's editorial board and Robert Bell each highlight the lack of any justification for privatized surgical operations even without that additional source of greed-based health care. 

- Sean Tucker writes about the need for far more to be done to keep workers safe in Saskatchewan. And Zak Vescera discusses the insufficient policy response to one of British Columbia's most prominent workplace fatalities. 

- Patrick Greenfield reports on an investigation finding that one of the largest carbon offset funds in the world is based on phantom emission reductions (and may in fact be worsening the climate breakdown). Robert Reich calls out the media's failure to connect California's severe storms to climate change. 

- Meanwhile, Oliver Milman offers a reminder that the healing of the Earth's ozone layer represents an important success story in cooperative environmental policy - with the near-elimination of the use of the substances responsible as a vital element of the achievement. 

- Finally, Kelvin Chan reports on Oxfam's push for a windfall tax on food companies. And D.T. Cochrane points out how price increases on existing products can be expected to correlate with economic stagnation due to corporate herd effects. 

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Angled cats.

Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Courtney Shea interviews Colin Furness about the combination of immunity theft and negligent public health messaging that's resulting in widespread avoidable illness, while Ashleigh McMillan reports on new research suggesting one in ten people infected with COVID-19 will end up with chronic health issues as a result. And Alexander Quon talks to Cory Neudorf and others about the causes of Saskatchewan's record COVID death toll in the year our government proclaimed the pandemic to be over. 

- Anam Khan reports on Nova Scotia's move to push newborn babies toward mobile clinics due to a lack of family doctors. And Mitchell Thompson reports on Doug Ford's plans to turn surgery into a corporate profit center - based specifically on his hostility toward publicly-administered health care. 

- Meanwhile, Bill Curry reports on the escalating amount of money being handed to McKinsey by the federal government (now over $100 million since the Libs took office) as a substitute for building the civil service. 

- David Farenthold and Talmon Smith report on how American food service workers have been conscripted to fund corporate lobbying against their own wages and working conditions. 

- Finally, Nicole Goodkind reports on the record levels of debt which have been accumulated globally - and the dangers of systemic collapse as interest rate hikes increase the cost associated with a larger amount borrowed. 

Monday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Raywat Deondanan discusses some of the lessons which we should have taken from the COVID-19 pandemic (if it wasn't being forcibly disappeared down a memory hole for all practical purposes). And Nicole Sarden and Bryan Yipp have found that the lasting effects of COVID include compromising the ability of people's immune systems to fight common invasive fungal infections. 

- Meanwhile, Larissa Kurz reports that Saskatchewan's death toll in 2022 includes a record number of lost lives due to drug poisonings. 

- Steven Staples discusses how the military-industry complex has pushed the Trudeau Libs to break their promise not to pour billions of federal dollars into F-35 fighters of questionable utility. And John Woodside investigates how the financial sector is pushing to water down regulations to avoid any consideration of whether fossil fuel extraction is compatible with meeting Canada's international climate commitments. 

- Finally, Umair Haque writes about the decline of disruptive science and innovation, as the power exerted by people profiting from the status quo is both resulting in new ideas being squelched and the essentials of life being priced out of the reach of a large number of people. 

Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Ed Browne examines the differences between the Kraken variant and the forms of COVID-19 which have come before. Char Leung, Li Su and Munehito Machida study how transmission different types of venues in Japan was reflected in further spread. And Benjamin Mateus discusses the readily-available options to clear air of COVID and other pathogens which are being ignored in favour of a strategy of denial.

- Michael Howard discusses how a basic income would effectively eradicate the U.S.' persistent poverty problem (among other social ills). 

- Meanwhile, Edward Keenan asks why Toronto (like so many other municipalities) is using force to destroy temporary encampments, rather than putting any resources into ensuring people have a safe home.  And Jason Vermes talks to Kayla DeMong about the need for support programs which don't insist on a miraculous, single-handed recovery from substance addiction as a precondition to any help.

- Katie Pedersen, Virginia Smart and David Common report on soaring cell phone bills across most of Canada as a narrowing corporate oligopoly squeezes consumers for every possible nickel. And Clement Nocos makes the case for a national public telecom provider to ensure people aren't systematically ripped off.

- Finally, Andrew Leach highlights how work toward a just transition is intended to make sure people who have previously depended on a declining fossil fuel sector have viable options for the future - in stark contrast to the desire of the UCP, Saskatchewan Party and their backers to focus solely on wringing short-term profits, then stick the workers and citizens who are left with all of the cost and risk of cleaning up the mess left behind.

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Hannah Davis et al. review what we know so far about long COVID - and how much work remains to be done in making treatments and support available. And Phil Tank discusses some of the myths and distortions which continue to distract people from an ongoing pandemic in Saskatchewan. 

- Meanwhile, Bill Hodgins reports on a staff report from Peterborough Public Health pushing for improved indoor air quality to deal with COVID and other health issues. 

- Anupriya Dasgupta examines how fossil fuel companies are allowed to disseminate blatant disinformation through mainstream media channels. And Dana Drugmand reports on the appointment of an oil CEO to oversee the next round of global climate talks.

- David Schlissel examines the inordinate cost of modular nuclear reactors compared existing clean energy options. Yet as the Moe government insists on pouring money into nuclear vaporware, Carla Shynkaruk reports on a Saskatoon group home which is shutting down and displacing nine residents due to a lack of provincial funding.

- Finally, Andrea Pinochet-Escudero writes about the limitations of organizing solely for an election campaign. 

Musical interlude

Flight Facilities - The Ghost

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Oscar Grenfell discusses how Australia is among the countries which has seen a declining life expectancy due to COVID-19 - with a distinct trend based on when it chose to let the pandemic run rampant. Jonathan Shaw examines the evidence showing greater risks of more severe outcomes arising out of reinfections. And Ollie Williams reports on arbitral decisions out of the Northwest Territories rejecting government arguments to dispense with COVID leave merely because it has chosen to lift any declaration of a public health emergency while the pandemic rages on. 

- Meanwhile, Chandra Philip reports on the continuing crisis at Saskatchewan's children's hospital which is having to warehouse patients in spaces not intended for care. And Parry Winsa reports on research showing that patients who try to address their conditions with virtual "walk-in" clinics - which privateering governments and corporations are pushing instead of funding primary physicians - are twice as likely to end up in the emergency room as those who are able to consult with a family doctor. 

- Colin McKerracher reports on the increase in electric vehicle sales over the past few years, while David Wallace-Wells points out that a fuller picture needs to include an even more substantial movement toward electric bikes. And Emily Pointecorvo discusses how a transition process will require far more electricians - which represents a challenge in meeting the new need, but also an obvious opportunity to create new skilled jobs (where the fossil fuel sector is relentlessly slashing them even while pocketing massive profits). 

- Bill McKibben and Oliver Milman each examine the latest revelations about Exxon's detailed knowledge of the global warming caused by fossil fuel use even as it spent massive amounts of money on lobbying and disinformation to prevent any action to combat it. And Aliaksandr Herasimenka et al. study the public-facing funding and infrastructure behind vaccine misinformation. 

- Ram Singh studies (PDF) the systemic gap between reported income and wealth among the wealthiest few - signaling that documented income inequality far underestimates the real disparity in resources.  

- Finally, Akansha Batra, Kaitlyn Jackson and Rita Hamad find that the U.S.' 2021 child tax credit expansion which put a substantial dent in poverty rates also had a marked positive effect on mental health. And Elaine Power, Jennifer Brady and Dian Day write that while a national school food policy would be a plus, it would cover only a small part of the need for support for lower-income families. 

Thursday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Andrew Nikiforuk writes about the need for a revolution in ventilation practices to limit the spread of COVID-19 and other illnesses. Emmanuel Heilmann et al. study the risks of relying on antiviral drugs rather than preventative measures, as it fuels the evolution of newer and less controllable variants. And Gregg Gonsalves calls out far too many media outlets for making a concerted choice to silence any continued discussion about the COVID-19 pandemic and other avoidable risks to health which are crying out for policy solutions. 

- Stuart Benson talks to David Fisman about the need for any federal health-care funding to Canada's provinces to be paired with accountability measures - particularly based on the provinces' choice to pocket pandemic resources rather than actually using them for their intended purposes. And Isaac Callan and Colin D'Mello report on the Doug Ford PCs' infuriating refusal to even acknowledge how many workers are needed to fill in existing gaps in the province's health care system. 

- Tracy Sherlock and Xavier Richer Vis report on the fossil fuel sector's lucrative lobbying which resulted in it being handed billions of federal dollars. And Robert Ascah discusses how oil and gas companies are pocketing windfall profits while sticking consumers with intolerable prices and demanding that governments clean up their pollution at public expense.  

- Finally, Robert Reich writes about the coalition of oligarchs and violent bigots which dominates the U.S.' Republican Party. 

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Chinta Sidharthan discusses new research on COVID-19 reinfections, showing that subsequent infections tend to produce similar immediate effects to a first one but with earlier long COVID effects. Ellen Phiddian reports on Brendan Crabb's observation that current immunity levels - through both vaccines and prior infections - are falling far short of managing the ongoing pandemic. And Andre Picard writes that the most virulent force that's been unleashed is glaring indifference toward others' health and well-being. 

- Meanwhile, Linda Silas points out that there are readily-available options to ameliorate Canada's health crisis. And Steven Staples discusses some of the public health care issues we should be watching in 2023. 

- Erin Bartram writes about the deteriorating working conditions for university adjuncts and graduate students - and how even professors with tenure and other formal protections are far worse off due to the precarity facing their colleagues.  

- Suzanne Shoush, Semir Bulle and Naheed Dosani highlight how it's investment in people - not in policing - that makes a community safe. And Jen St. Denis reports on how Vancouver-area police have harassed an individual for having the temerity to film an officer's violent assault on a citizen which had otherwise been covered up. 

- Finally, Rose Abramoff tells her story of being fired from a scientific research position merely for imploring fellow scientists to translate their knowledge into climate activism. And Damian Carrington reports that while authorities crack down on any effort to repair the harm we've done to our climate, the Earth's oceans have again reached a record high temperature in 2022. 

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Fluffy cats.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Stephanie Desmon interviews Ziyad Al-Aly about the reality that anybody infected with COVID-19 faces a substantial risk of heart problems as a result. And Moira Wyton examines what British Columbia could be doing to limit the spread of the Kraken sub-variant, while Paul Faulkner reports on Ian Watkinson's call for air cleaning units to reduce the transmission of respiratory infections in schools. 

- Meanwhile, F. Douglas Stephenson offers a reminder that the pharmaceutical industry has every incentive to see people get sick and require treatment, rather than acting responsibility to avoid the spread of disease. 

- Ari Natter reports on the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's work examining whether gas stoves should be regulated due to their contribution to asthma and other respiratory ailments. And Oliver Milman notes that many U.S. cities are finally pushing back against the spread of parking lots which encourage vehicle use while disincentivizing any other form of transportation - even as Peter Walker observes that policies aimed at reducing avoidable vehicle traffic are met with a particularly virulent strain of conspiracy theory in response.  

- Finally, Vivian Unger discusses how an electoral system which awards absolute power based on a minority of votes can be expected to break down trust between the public and the politicians who are supposed to be serving it. 

Monday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Erin Durkin writes about the failure of the U.S.' government to deal with the growing impact of long COVID - and the likelihood that matters will only get worse with Republicans able to unilaterally refuse funding. And Lisa Young wishes that Alberta's government could better be classified as a meerkat which is alter to its surroundings, rather than an ostrich determinedly avoiding information which didn't match its ideology. 

- James Galbraith comments on the difficulty of trying to respond to inflation with interest rate hikes under an ologopolistic economic system. And Robert Reich writes that the response to inflation should involve breaking up corporate behemoths which are extracting windfall profits, not attacking workers in their attempts to tread water. 

- Zoe Williams discusses how body image distress (particularly in young people) can be traced almost entirely to corporations looking to turn self-image problems of their own creation into long-term profit centres. And the Economic recognizes that the generation of young adults in the UK is rightly outraged at having its present and future put at risk in order to extract wealth for older generations.  

- Mitchell Thompson writes about the critical state of Canada's health care system. 

- Finally, Cory Doctorow comments on the rise and fall of social media platforms - and how the demise of Facebook and Twitter is a predictable result of their being managed to serve the interests of investors and advertisers rather than users. 

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Nicholas Frew reports on the wholly-unsurprising news that the XBB.1.5 COVID-19 variant mad its way into Saskatchewan before the holidays with zero timely public notice. And Scott Larson reports that Saskatoon's pediatric hospital is among the many medical institutions swamped with respiratory illnesses even as a new COVID wave forms.

- Umair Haque discusses how we should see the collapse of the UK's National Health Service as a warning to the world. And Shanti Das and Jon Ungoed-Thomas report that the NHS itself is promoting privatized, pay-for-play services to patients to avoid the delays caused by the government's perpetual neglect.

- Jennifer Ackerman writes about the widespread recognition of glaring gaps in Saskatchewan's social safety net which made the news in 2022 - though sadly the only end result has been for callous politicians to go out of their way to make matters worse.

- Bloomberg News points out the severe and avoidable risk from the world's reliance on a dwindling number of crops for food, including three which make up half of humanity's calorie consumption.

- Finally, Sam Levin reports on the U.S.' new record high in civilians killed by police in 2022 - even as the public discourse about law enforcement was hijacked by corporations seeking to paint themselves and the police as victims.

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Tisse Wijeratne et al. discuss what we know - and have yet to discover - about long COVID's effects on our brains three years into a pandemic which is being allowed to run rampant. And Mary Van Beusekom writes about the lengthening list of organs affected (and harms possible) when children get infected.

- Thara Kumar warns about Danielle Smith's plans to put health care behind a paywall. And Julia Rock offers a reminder of big pharma's example as to how corporatized health care profits will be used, with far more of its massive revenue from exclusive control over necessary medications going to shareholder payouts and lobbying than to research and development.

- Justin Ling discusses how McKinsey and Company is operating as a richly-compensated shadow government (thanks in no small part to decades of cutbacks and "efficiencies" which have left the public sector with challenges in trying to plan and strategize for itself). 

- Gabrielle Fonrouge reports on Walgreens' belated admission that its complaints about inventory theft were overblown - which comes far too late (and too quietly) to make up for the disproportionate effect the initial spin had in buttressing tough-on-crime messages in key elections.

- Finally, Trish Hennessy discusses what we can do to avoid being duped by misinformation. An Dan Dunsky reviews two books addressing the deliberate falsehoods spread by the populist right (and the damage they've done to democracy).

Musical interlude

The Paper Kites - Give Me Your Fire, Give Me Your Rain