Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Travelling cat.

Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Jan-Werner Muller discusses Pete Hegseth's development of a nihilistic death cult. Dave Levitin comments on the connection between the elite choice to keep us dependent on dirty fossil fuels and the death and destruction arising from the Iran war today. And Damien Gayle notes that the war in turn is producing catastrophic environmental effects, as attacks on oil and gas infrastructure result in fires and uncontrolled emission releases. 

- Josh Gabbatiss points out how AI data centres are likely to end up causing far more carbon pollution than advertised. And Rory White and Natasha Bulowski document how the vast majority of planned data centres in Alberta are set to cause even more severe problems in areas whose water supply is already under severe threat. 

- Meanwhile, Emma Roth discusses how the current obsession with age verification may threaten virtual private networks and any other means of preserving privacy or security online. 

- Finally, Michelle McLean writes that Canada's universal system is the type of nation-building project we should be working to emulate - even as numerous premiers have set out to destroy it with two-tiered structures and corporate ownership models, and the Carney government (in keeping with its fundamental neoliberalism) has acquiesced in the carnage. 

Musical interlude

Bob Moses - We Made It

 

Thursday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Paul Krugman notes that Donald Trump has upended the theory that presidential influence on the economy is overstated, as every new difficulty facing the U.S. can be traced to his deliberate choices. And Richard Bookstaber discusses how the global economy may be headed toward much worse than the 2008 crisis, even as Alexis Lapp reports on Trump's plans to reverse the few public protections put in place after that occurred. 

- Meanwhile, Owen Jones writes that the Iran war has destroyed any pretense that the U.S.' is a global leader rather than a bully. And Jan Dehn discusses the prospect that the Iran war will serve as the death knell for fossil fuel dependency, while George Monbiot reminds us that our current reliance on dirty energy has only fuelled the rise of dictators. 

- Eric Dolan writes about new research on the effect of electronic interruptions - with constant notifications serving as a more problematic disruption than screen time alone. The Associated Press reports on Canada's descent in the Wellbeing Research Centre's global happiness rankings, with the effects of heavy social media media use among young people identified as a major cause. And James Densley and Jillian Peterson discuss how the profile of mass shooters increasingly reflects younger people radicalized by an online culture of performative violence.

-  Finally, Meghan Bartels examines new research showing that the death toll from COVID-19 in the U.S. has likely been severely underestimated due to a reluctance to test for the disease. 

Wednesday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Anne Applebaum weighs in on the inevitable recognition by any remotely rational actor that it's pointless to offer Donald Trump any respect or trustworthiness that he's fundamentally incapable of reciprocating, while Andrew Egger rightly highlights how Trump has lost friends and alienated people. But Pooja Misra reports that Pierre Poilievre is determinated to be the sucker who bets Canada's future on the preposterous theory that Trump can be trusted both to bargain in good faith, and hold up his end of any deal. 

- Jake Grumbach discusses the longstanding awareness that extreme inequality is incompatible with a functional political system and constitutional order. And Roberta Lexier writes about the feedback loop between capitalist accumulation and fascist politics - along with the need to fight back against both. 

- Jen Deerinwater and Jesse Deer In Water discuss the Indigenous pushback against the environmental damage and cultural theft wrought by gigantic data centres. Brian Merchant explores how AI is undermining post-secondary education in the U.S. And Emily Tate Sullivan examines how AI slop is particularly harmful to children's brains which are still developing. 

- Finally, Nora Loreto examines the connections between military culture and white supremacism in Quebec City. 

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Blissed cat.

Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Mona Charen writes that Donald Trump's war in Iran can't be explained by any motive other than a sheer ego trip. Steven Beschloss notes that nobody should be surprise that the countries who have been on the receiving end of his abuse and impetuousness are less than eager to rush to his aid. And Martin Gelin reports on the V-Dem Institute's conclusion that Trump is aiming squarely at the imposition of dictatorship. 

- Mel Hogan writes that the ultimate effect of sycophantic artificial intelligence is the cultivation of mass psychosis. And Zeb Larson compares the data center boom to the 1800s railroad bubble - featuring large-scale, heavily-subsidized investment which ultimately served mostly to further enrich the tycoons who could more than afford to finance any development on their own.  

- Noah Berlatsky is rightly scathing about the U.S. Democrats who are responding to a fascist regime and the destruction of the civil service with tax baubles. And Ned Resnikoff points out the impossibility of building a functional society on a deliberately-suppressed resource base. 

- Finally, Markham Hislop calls out the lack of any plan for Canada to live up to even the most distant or modest of our climate commitments. And Emily Atkin examines the latest permutations of fossil fuel propaganda, featuring the demand that we put our future solely in the hands of the same bad actors who have already lied us into dangerous global warming. 

Monday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Adam King discusses several new studies showing that wealth inequality is only continuing to balloon in Canada. And Jared Walker and Silas Xuereb rightly question why Canadian corporate giants which extracted two-thirds of a trillion dollars in profits in 2025 are still being granted massive public handouts. 

- Meanwhile, Martin Lukacs talks to several movement organizers working on pushing back against Mark Carney's insistence on further entrenching corporate power. 

- Julia Simon notes that countries which have invested in solar energy and electrified transportation are far better positioned to deal with the oil shocks caused by Donald Trump's irrational attack on Iran. James Murray observes that European businesses are pushing to be freed from reliance on fossil fuels whose supply can be so easily disrupted, while David Fickling discusses how the plummeting price of battery storage (along with renewable power) is making dependence on oil and gas into a sucker's bet even from an immediate cost standpoint alone. But Drew Anderson's review of the state of clean energy development in Alberta highlights how the UCP has destroyed massive amounts of value and blocked needed investment as a sacrifice to the dirty oil gods. 

- Finally, Dave Levitan comments on the dangers of gambling on prediction markets. And Emanuel Fabian offers a personal account of the threats directed at a journalist for reporting accurate information rather than being pressured into assisting people who bet on the opposite outcome. 

Musical interlude

The Boxer Rebellion & Tinlicker - Diamonds

 

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Alex Nguyen examines the petro-imperialism which is being inflicted on the world by the Trump administration.  And David Dayen writes that the Iran war is exposing how the U.S. faces serious supply issues which have been utterly ignored by the Trump regime.  

- Meanwhile, Gregg Gonsalves implores health workers to resist the Trump regime's abuses rather than acquiescing in civil rights abuses and the destruction of evidence-based policy. 

- Matteo Wong examines how the implausible promises of artificial intelligence are being pushed at the price of massive and dangerous changes to our natural living environment. Claire Cameron points out that even the minimal level of AI found in autocomplete mechanisms has a severe effect on our writing and thinking. And Alondra Nelson notes that the Trump regime's "deregulation" of AI in fact consists of direct state intervention to impose corporate secrecy and control.

- Dale Smith warns that the Libs are once again attacking privacy in the name of false promises of public protection - this time through mandatory age verification which both excludes young people from the online world, and impose dangerous ID requirements on adults whose personal information can then get hoovered up by tech giants.

- Finally, Saskboy points out that Regina's air quality data has generally been flawed, with little sign of any effort to improve it. And Marc Fawcett-Atkinson reports that the dirty energy industry wants us to have even less information about methane emissions, relying solely on polluters' self-reporting which has been proven to be inaccurate.