Musical interlude

Tove Lo - Borderline

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Dave Davies interviews Jason C. Jackson about the widespread damage from long COVID - and the lack of remotely sufficient efforts either to prevent its spread, or respond to its effects. And Crawford Kilian weighs in on what we've failed to learn while normalizing avoidable harm to large numbers of people.  

- Manpreet Gill discusses how hallway medicine dehumanizes patients - and how the UCP has chosen to force health care workers to make it the norm. And the Canadian Press reports on the Ford PCs' legislated push to divert public health care resources toward private surgical providers. 

- Jeff Lagerquist reports on Suncor's plans to slash its workforce no matter how many policy concessions it takes or how much windfall profit it accumulates. Diane Orihel, Chloe Robinson and Chris Elvidge report on the harm caused by Imperial Oil's hidden tailings pond leaks - along with the virtual certainty that there are many more similar incidents that have remained concealed from public view. And Emma Jackson writes about the desperate need for political vision to put an end to the damage caused by dirty energy operators, even as Alberta goes through a provincial election where the spectrum of positions on the wanton destruction of our planet ranges from "friendly acquiescence" to "championing with religious zeal".  

- Finally, Andrew Perez exposes how pension fund money is being used to buy and operate facilities using child labour. And Anjeanette Damon, Byard Duncan and Mollie Simon report on the manipulative and deceptive business model used by home flippers to exploit seniors. 

Thursday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Alex Hemingway offers a reminder of the urgent need for a wealth tax - and the opportunity to fund important social priorities by implementing one. But Cory Doctorow points out how our economic system is structured to favour people seeking to get rich off of avoiding responsibility - including through the same firms being responsible for performing audits as for advising corporations on how to beat them. 

- Gwynne Dyer writes about the threat to our living environment posed by warming oceans, while Isla Myers-Smith notes that the release of greenhouse gases from permafrost stands to accelerate the cycle of warming and extreme weather. 

- But while the world burns, Carl Meyer reports on how the UCP has allowed oil lobbyists to take any discussion of even distant and loophole-riddled net-zero emission targets off of their policy agenda. And Trina Moyles reports on the direct connection between the UCP's cuts to firefighting and the calamitous wildfires which struck last week.

- Meanwhile, Jason Markusoff discusses how the UCP under Danielle Smith is now controlled by Take Back Alberta, which is pushing the limits of anti-science and authoritarianism even compared to both the UCP and the past Wildrose party. 

- Finally, Emma Bowman comments on how the dehumanization of homeless people results in many avoidable deaths - even if few receive as much publicity as Jordan Neely's.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Slumbering cats.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Matthew Oliver, Mark Ungrin and Joe Vipond write about the overwhelming evidence that masks offer protection from airborne viruses - even as anti-public-health forces attack them as part of their general denialist project. And Dan Diamond reports on expert warnings that in the absence of precautions, the U.S. may face another massive COVID wave in the next couple of years even from a far higher baseline. 

- Matthew Rosza offers a grim look at what humanity's next century looks like if we don't avert a climate breakdown. Michael Barnard discusses the absurdity of Alberta's establishment refusing to mention fossil fuels as a cause of devastating wildfires - while the anti-science movement stoked by the people profiting off ignorance is turning its denialism to those as well. Geoffrey Diehl writes about the illusion that fossil fuels are a necessary part of our social and economic fabric, rather than an avoidable source of damage to both. And Mitchell Beer notes that far too many people are already facing energy poverty, and stand to benefit immensely from a shift to less dependence on dirty and volatile fuel sources. 

- Meanwhile, Nikki DeMarco reports that Florida's sacrifice of citizens' health to corporate interests has reached the level of allowing corporations to use radioactive waste in road construction. And Michael Grabell examines the price of tires as a case study in the factors which have caused inflation - with corporate concentration and price gouging of consumers who lack any practical choice as a major piece of the puzzle. 

- David Moscrop interviews Cory Doctorow about tech giants' deliberate enshittification of the Internet.

- Finally, Dru Oja Jay discusses how a strong public sector workforce produces spillover benefits for the population as a whole. 

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.