Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- The Australian National University examines how it's possible to ensure a healthy standard of living for all of humanity within the Earth's planetary limits - but only based on a transformation of how we manage and distribute resources. And Rob Jackson and Josie Garthwaite discuss how especially-dangerous methane emissions are continuing to rise, while a belated effort to limit them is only starting to produce any observance results.

- Marc Fawcett-Atkinson reports on the federal government's decision not to regulate harmful PFAs based on heavy lobbying and polluter-funded research. 

- Robert Reich points out how Donald Trump's economic plans combine a toxic mix of corporate impunity, further concentration of wealth, and added costs for consumers. 

- Marcia Dunn discusses how space has become yet another plaything for the uber-wealthy rather than a domain for exploration and discovery. But Giri Nathan writes that there's no realistic basis for the fantasy of colonizing Mars as a substitute for caring for the Earth.

- Finally, Harrison Mooney discusses how John Rustad is looking to bring a Republican-style book purge to British Columbia. David Climenhaga compares Danielle Smith's demand that the federal government squash any form of job action by federally-regulated workers against her support for the Flu Trux Klan's violent takeover of cities and border crossings. And Colin Horgan wonders whether Pierre Poilievre's substitution of shitposting for any substantive communication will carry a price during a federal election campaign.  

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Ben Cohen points out some of the ways the Omicron variant deviates from what we've come to assume about COVID-19. And Colin Horgan writes that we should draw lessons from the pandemic in exposing some of the ways our social system is built to collapse. 

- Max Fawcett discusses how Jason Kenney and Doug Ford are proving themselves cowards with their grossly insufficient responses to the impending Omicron wave. But contrary to Fawcett's conclusion that Kenney ranks as the worst premier in the country, Scott Moe's refusal to implement a single public health measure - even in the face of modelling showing how a reasonable government could snuff out the wave entirely - stands out as uniquely callous even among this lot. 

- Kate Aronoff writes that the U.S.' failure to move ahead with even basic climate change legislation endangers the world as a whole. Trevor Melanson notes that the public needs to be better informed about the success stories that have arisen to date. And Julia Rock reports on Enbridge's attempt to squeeze even more windfall profits out of its pipelines now based on the argument that they'll be obsolete in just a decade or two. 

- PressProgress surveys some of the most important fights taken up by Canada's labour movement this year. And the Canadian Labour Congress responds to the Ford PCs' attempt to entrench second-class status for gig workers - including by highlighting the importance of universal social programs in not tying the necessities of life to employment (however it's disguised). 

- Finally, Stephen Maher looks to the history of tobacco companies' public denial of scientific facts in raising the likelihood that social media giants are similarly hiding the deliberately harmful effects of their own products. 

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Jason Hinkel writes that for as much attention as global inequality has received in recent years, it may be significantly more of a problem than we've previously assumed - and getting worse as time goes by:

It doesn’t matter how you slice it; global inequality is getting worse. Much worse. Convergence theory turned out to be wildly incorrect. Inequality doesn’t disappear automatically; it all depends on the balance of political power in the global economy. As long as a few rich countries have the power to set the rules to their own advantage, inequality will continue to worsen. The debt system, structural adjustment, free trade agreements, tax evasion, and power asymmetries in the World Bank, the IMF, and the WTO are all major reasons that inequality is getting worse instead of better.

It’s time we face up to the imbalances that distort our global economy. There’s nothing natural about extreme inequality. It is man-made. It has to do with power. And we need to have the courage to say so.

- Meanwhile, Thomas Piketty writes that the aftermath of the Panama Papers represents the perfect time to crack down on tax havens.

- Aaron Hutchins exposes how Canada is regularly used to anonymize income for the purposes of tax avoidance, while Justin Ling looks into Canada's pitiful record of investigating and prosecuting tax evasion. And Mainstreet finds a whopping 81% of Canadians agree that the rich aren't paying their fair share - meaning there's plenty of demand for both far more enforcement than we've seen to date, and a more progressive tax system to begin with.

- Betsy Powell and Jennifer Pagliaro examine the schemes used primarily by developers to get around Toronto's political donation limits - while noting that there are some obvious fixes available to the extent anybody's committed to reining in those abuses.

- Finally, Colin Horgan raises one of the questions which the NDP should be working on resolving at this weekend's convention and beyond - being what role a political party should actually play.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Julie Delahanty comments on Canada's crisis of inequality and poverty. And Sean McElwee highlights how the ill-founded belief that income inequality is more a matter of merit than luck tends to lead people to accept far more of it than should be tolerable.

- Susan Riley rightly challenges the myth of "tax relief" - which typically results in tiny individual returns at the expense of any capacity to build a functional society.

- Paris Marx argues that a basic income serves as the most promising support system to allow for the growth of art and culture. And Angella MacEwen points out that employment insurance is the most obvious means of targeting stimulus money toward both social needs and economic growth.

- Finally, Colin Horgan examines the future of media as a public good in Canada, including this suggestion as to how to develop new opportunities for focused discussion of issues:

(T)he CBC’s online division offers the best chance at producing more new, niche-oriented media, given that it continues to receive federal funding — and if the current government has anything to do with it, apparently will receive more. This is not to say that all out-of-work journalists could work for the CBC, but rather that it may be there where experimentation could work, as it bears fewer (though still some) of the pressures of private media.

More specifically, this might mean launching an iPlayer-style TV app, and commissioning programming for it that otherwise might not make it to the main network simply because it appeals only to a small sub-section of viewers. Similarly, expanding its battery of podcasts beyond merely recordings of its radio shows, to include specific — or even random — topics (Video games? TV recaps? Vacations in continental Europe? WHL team coverage? The Aboriginal music scene?) would be inexpensive and, more importantly, allow advertisers more specific audiences to target. Likewise with its journalism: why not open sub-sites? Why not, for example, a data-journalism site akin to FiveThirtyEight? Any of these ventures that proves successful at the CBC might strike out on its own, starting another series of similar shows or podcasts, complete with a website garnered toward those viewers or listeners. Who knows?

There are problems with this idea — I can name a few already. For one, it would take a major shift in the way we conceive of a public broadcaster (as part start-up incubator). But if a varied, engaged, and thoughtful media sphere is indeed a public policy concern, then it might be incumbent of us to at least spitball some ideas about what we can do with the media corporation we all still own.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Neil Irwin highlights the reality that top-heavy economic growth has done nothing to reduce poverty in the U.S. over the past 40 years:

In Kennedy’s era, [the "rising tide lifts all boats" theory] had the benefit of being true. From 1959 to 1973, the nation’s economy per person grew 82 percent, and that was enough to drive the proportion of the poor population from 22 percent to 11 percent.

But over the last generation in the United States, that simply hasn’t happened. Growth has been pretty good, up 147 percent per capita. But rather than decline further, the poverty rate has bounced around in the 12 to 15 percent range — higher than it was even in the early 1970s. The mystery of why — and how to change that — is one of the most fundamental challenges in the nation’s fight against poverty.

...
The 1959 to 1973 period might be an unfair benchmark. The Great Society social safety net programs were being put in place, and they may have had a poverty-lowering effect separate from that of the overall economic trends. In other words, it may be simply that during that time, strong growth and a falling poverty rate happened to take place simultaneously for unrelated reasons. And there presumably is some level of poverty below which the official poverty rate will never fall, driven by people whose problems run much deeper than economics.

But the facts still cast doubt on the notion that growth alone will solve America’s poverty problem.

...

The reality is that low-income workers are putting in more hours on the job than they did a generation ago — and the financial rewards for doing so just haven’t increased.

That’s the real lesson of the data: If you want to address poverty in the United States, it’s not enough to say that you need to create better incentives for lower-income people to work. You also have to devise strategies that make the benefits of a stronger economy show up in the wages of the people on the edge of poverty, who need it most desperately.

- Kate Allen reports that 300 scientists have teamed up to call attention to the flawed assessment process applied to the Gateway pipeline, while Kai Nagata theorizes that the Cons might well scrap the project themselves. But I have my doubts about that theory in light of the Harper Cons' continued devotion to Keystone XL even as it produces a constant flow of shutdowns, leaks and spills.

- Meanwhile, the Montreal Gazette laments the Cons' continued climate change obstruction.

- PressProgress offers ten reasons to be worried about the Cons' disregard for privacy. Colin Horgan recognizes that while the Cons' arguments against an effective census were nonsensical in that context, they would represent a strong case against the accountability-free sharing of personal information which the Cons now want to ram into law. And Michael Harris discusses how fits into Harper's Genghis Khan-like view of power.

- Frances Russell writes about Canada's descent from being internationally admired for its model democratic system, to serving as a cautionary tale.

- Finally, Seth Klein points out how modest tax increases on the wealthy could fully fund needed improvements to B.C.'s education system. But naturally, the Clark Libs are fully focused on attacking the province's teachers instead.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Agence France-Presse reports that even the IMF has reached the conclusion that higher taxes on wealthy citizens are a necessary part of competent economic management - even as the Harper Cons and other right-wing governments keep trying to peddle trickle-down economics to everybody's detriment.

- Susan Delacourt writes that political campaigns may have managed to jump ahead of corporate marketing in targeting messages to individual voters. But Stephen Maher is rightly concerned that both parties and governments alike are being run primarily based on a desire to create political fund-raising messages, rather than any coherent sense of achieving some common good.

- And speaking of parties who have completely lost the plot as to right and wrong, Mohammed Adam tears into the Cons for their callous disregard for war rape victims:

According to Save the Children, which has documented the atrocity across continents, the most vulnerable are adolescent girls, and pregnancy has become a leading cause of death among girls aged 15 to 19 because of unsafe abortions and complications from giving birth.

This is why safe abortions, which are recognized as a right by the Geneva Convention, are a necessary part of the range of services war rape victims need. It is not an ideological issue, but a life-and-death issue for many of the young girls, and clinics have been set up for those who need the service.

But this is what the Canadian government refuses to help fund.

- Colin Horgan worries that the unchecked spread of the security state will force Canadians to silence themselves for fear of having their personal opinions and preferences misused by the powers that be. But Tony Burman reminds us that there's already a watchdog in place to monitor CSEC's activities - and that the security state might not have spread unchecked if it had received the resources to do its job.

- Finally, Brendan Haley writes about Canada's "staples trap" as a severe restriction on policy choices - with the Cons' continued refusal to regulate greenhouse gas emissions (or even accept the reality of climate change) where environmental sustainability and the oil industry's immediate profits are at odds serving as a particularly stark example.

[Edit: fixed wording.]

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Nadir Khan interviews Linda McQuaig about her choice to run for the NDP in Toronto Centre - and confirms that McQuaig's commitment to progressive politics fits neatly with her participation in a caucus:

NK : You mention that you’ve been outspoken and taken a strong stance on issues you care about. Certain research groups like Samara have found, through interviewing MPs, that MPs are surprised by how much party discipline is present in Parliament.

What are your thoughts on that? If you’re elected, do you see your outspoken and combative approach changing within the context of how disciplined our Parliament can be?

LM : I mean I certainly didn’t get into politics to kind of modify my voice. Or cease to be outspoken on issues. You know, that would be counterproductive. At the same time, I would say that I understand that if you enter politics it’s a different process than being a writer. You belong to a party and you make decisions collectively within that party on what the stance is going to be. And I accept that as part of the democratic process. I understand that that it is…the way it should be.  So, among other things, one of the things I look forward to is to be a strong and effective voice within that NDP caucus. Advocating those progressive positions that I’ve long done publicly.

- Andrew Jackson and Jonathan Sas observe that the Cons' response to growing awareness of inequality and poverty as policy issues has been to push income-splitting and other schemes to divert still more wealth to the top of the income spectrum.

- Michael Harris highlights about the Cons' continued contempt for science - and indeed their efforts to make money attacking it.

- Robyn Benson writes about the future of the union movement - pointing out that even now organized labour speaks for a substantial proportion of the public, while hinting at the importance of both organizing and communicating with still more potential members and supporters. And Julian Beltrame reports on the PBO's finding that the Cons' attempts to invent a need to slash public-sector wages are utterly misplaced, as actual wages have barely kept up with inflation.

- Thomas Walkom echoes my question as to whether Nova Scotia's election results should serve to challenge the prevailing orthodoxy that bland centrism is a path toward political success.

- Finally, Colin Horgan discusses how a talking-point culture both reflects and contributes to a lack of substantial discussion about political issues:

(W)hat’s really being promoted here isn’t time-saving or even effective communications. This is a way for governments and parties to say even less. That prospect might be very appealing to a lot of people — but it should be worrying us.

There is a very simple reason why politicians tend to sound idiotic when given less space and time to speak. There are clear restraints on nuance and considered thought when you speak in sentences that can be clipped by the news networks. At party HQs, where those sentences are dreamed up, they know this very well. And we all know the result. Language and arguments are dumbed-down, simplified and filled with hyperbole and outrage — a mélange of emotion based on limited knowledge.
...
While the minimalist-statement, talking-point strategy doesn’t always work (not everyone can win an election, after all), parties have to use it now merely to level the playing field. You have to fight your competition on common ground, and by and large the talking point battlefield is that place. But it relies on people not paying attention. After all, you can only really vote on what you know and, as far as politicians are concerned, the less you know, the better. An uninformed populace is more likely to either believe the last lie they heard or disengage altogether. While parties probably would prefer the first scenario, they know that if a voter doesn’t vote, at least he’s not voting for the other guy.

So now imagine less. Less information, less communication. Fewer words and fewer thoughts. Less nuance and less understanding. We go from the inane and ridiculous to, for all intents and purposes, nothing at all.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Jim Stanford discusses the OECD's findings that job protection actually improves better employment outcomes - while "flexible" labour markets serve only to ensure less opportunity for workers. And Sid Ryan makes the case for premiers to reject a low-wage agenda.

- Oil spills are happening all over the place without being reported. Nobody has any idea what's causing them or what to do about them. Traditional First Nations land is being contaminated. So all in all, it's business as usual in the Cons' dirty-oil economy.

- Meanwhile, investigators into the Lac-Mégantic disaster are keying in on the composition of the oil being shipped - since ordinary crude shouldn't produce the type of explosion that decimated Lac-Mégantic. And Greenpeace rightly calls for some wider consideration of the different types of oil being shipped and used when it comes to setting regulations.

- While I haven't seen much worth commenting on about the Cons' cabinet shuffle, I'll offer one followup note on Pierre Poilievre's history as a robocaller. Having operated a robocall firm himself, he'll likely have as good an idea as anybody both how to take advantage of the law as it stands now, and how to amend the Canada Elections Act so as not to prevent the Cons' robocall contractors from continuing their shady operations. And particularly given the reports this spring that previous elections legislation was stopped at the behest of the Cons' caucus, I'd suspect that's exactly why he's been given the role.

- Finally, Colin Horgan muses about the Cons' strategy in releasing details of their cabinet deck chair rearrangement on Twitter.

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Paul Krugman points out that workers are receiving less and less benefit from technological advancements - and offers a simple policy prescription to ensure workers of all skill levels don't suffer unduly based on forces far beyond their control:

I’ve noted before that the nature of rising inequality in America changed around 2000. Until then, it was all about worker versus worker; the distribution of income between labor and capital — between wages and profits, if you like — had been stable for decades. Since then, however, labor’s share of the pie has fallen sharply. As it turns out, this is not a uniquely American phenomenon. A new report from the International Labor Organization points out that the same thing has been happening in many other countries, which is what you’d expect to see if global technological trends were turning against workers. 

And some of those turns may well be sudden. The McKinsey Global Institute recently released a report on a dozen major new technologies that it considers likely to be “disruptive,” upsetting existing market and social arrangements. Even a quick scan of the report’s list suggests that some of the victims of disruption will be workers who are currently considered highly skilled, and who invested a lot of time and money in acquiring those skills. For example, the report suggests that we’re going to be seeing a lot of “automation of knowledge work,” with software doing things that used to require college graduates. Advanced robotics could further diminish employment in manufacturing, but it could also replace some medical professionals.

...
So what is the answer? If the picture I’ve drawn is at all right, the only way we could have anything resembling a middle-class society — a society in which ordinary citizens have a reasonable assurance of maintaining a decent life as long as they work hard and play by the rules — would be by having a strong social safety net, one that guarantees not just health care but a minimum income, too. And with an ever-rising share of income going to capital rather than labor, that safety net would have to be paid for to an important extent via taxes on profits and/or investment income.

- And Sarah Cooper and Lynne Fernandez concur in the conclusion that a more fair distribution of income is the best treatment for poverty (among other problems). 

- Meanwhile, Chrystia Freeland highlights the reality that even the 1% can't avoid the detrimental effects of inequality - with a TED event in Edinburgh serving to bring the issue to the forefront:

I was a speaker, too. I talked about my chief obsession, soaring global income inequality, particularly at the very top of the pyramid, and the uncomfortable fact that the same forces that are enriching the global super-elite are hollowing out the middle class in the West’s developed economies. Making capitalism work for everyone, and not just the plutocrats, I argued, is our most pressing political and economic problem.

Taken together, and given the gilded venue, all of these comments amount to a significant shift in tone. Charlie Robertson, the global chief economist for Renaissance Capital, the Russian-based investment bank, was moved to post on Twitter, in reaction to the TED lineup, that the “intellectual ascendancy of neo-liberalism since ’70s may be in retreat.”

That is probably going too far. But we do seem to be at a turning point, or the beginning of one. Judging by this week in Edinburgh, even the winners in the global economy are beginning to realize that there are a lot of losers, too, and that it’s a problem. You might see that as too little too late; you might also see it as, at long last, a start.

- Colin Horgan writes that Stephen Harper's speech to the UK Parliament this week was more partisan than prime ministerial. Bruce Johnstone notes that it was predictably laden with falsehoods as well. And contrary to Harper's efforts to claim immunity from international economic conditions, Krugman points to Canada's rising household debt load and housing prices as offering a test case for the dangers of future deleveraging shocks.

- Finally, Lana Payne proposes that we get serious in addressing tax avoidance and evasion, while recognizing that the Cons' anti-tax ideology is standing in the way of global action:

Given Mr. Harper’s opinion on taxes, it should come as no surprise that he is said to be the problem at the G8 table. Tax havens, of course, are a practice by which the very rich get to hide their money so they can avoid paying taxes.

After all, if, as the prime minister believes, all taxes are bad, why then the need to seriously crack down on those who avoid them?

According to Canadians for Tax Fairness, Canada has been withholding support for two key aspects of the G8 tax havens action plan. They include that financial institutions in tax havens be required to have a public registry of the ultimate beneficial owner of all accounts, trusts or corporations and that there be multilateral tax information sharing between governments.

The tax fairness folks say these measures are important to “lifting the veil of secrecy that allows wealthy individuals and corporate tax evaders and criminal organizations to hide their wealth offshore.”

But Stephen Harper, it appears, would rather protect the cheats. Yes, well, don’t be surprised; there was that Mike Duffy affair.

So let’s get this straight.

The government — bent on forcing unions to publish nearly every transaction on a public website, taking up the time and resources of Revenue Canada officials, creating a pile of red tape for labour organizations, violating privacy laws and in all likelihood the Constitution — is opposed to a public registry to catch tax evaders.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Jillian Berman reports on research showing that the predictable effect of decreased unionization is a transfer of wealth from workers to shareholders:

The jump in corporate profit over the past few decades can be explained largely by a decline in union membership over the same period, according to a study by Tali Kristal, a sociologist at the University of Haifa in Israel. The boost in companies’ bottom line comes at workers’ expense, Kristal wrote in an email to The Huffington Post.

“It’s a zero sum game: whatever is not going to workers, goes to corporations,” Kristal said. “Union decline not only increased wage gaps among workers, but also enabled capitalists to grab a larger slice of the national income pie at the expense of all workers, including the highly skilled.”

The findings, published Thursday in the American Sociological Review, add a new dimension to the debate over income inequality in the U.S., suggesting that policies aimed at boosting unions may help. Corporate profit soared to a record high share of the economy earlier this year, according to Bloomberg, while workers' wages have remained largely stagnant. The rise in profit comes as union membership has dropped to a record low.

- Nora Loreto discusses the importance of including younger workers in the benefits of unionization - rather than conceding future losses to protect past gains. And Trish Hennessy offers some numbers on working women - including confirmation of the role of unions in pursuing pay equity.

- Thomas Walkom writes that the Cons' PMO-controlled slush fund looks to be the missing link connecting Clusterduff to the broader party apparatus. And as Colin Horgan points out, the Cons aren't helping their already-lacking credibility any through feeble attempts to deny the obvious facts about a fund - particularly after confirming them a day earlier.

- Meanwhile, Alex Jordan Himelfarb comments that Stephen Harper's choice to flee questions about his party's patronage system reflects disdain for democratic transparency. And Chantal Hebert wonders whether resignation may soon be in the cards for Harper.

- Finally, Adrienne Silnicki observes that funding health care is a matter of political choice - and that the governments who demand that we accept fewer services in the name of tax breaks for the wealthy be held to account for that readily-avoidable state of affairs.

[Edit: Fixed attribution, typo.]

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Business Insider reports on a new study from the U.S.' Congressional Research Service showing that in addition to exacerbating inequality, top-heavy tax cuts rank somewhere between useless and downright harmful when it comes to overall economic growth:

According to a new study by the Congressional Research Service (non-partisan), there's no evidence that tax cuts spur growth.

In fact, although correlation is not causation, when you compare economic growth in periods with declining tax rates versus periods with high tax rates, there seems to be evidence that tax cuts might hurt growth. But we'll leave that possibility for another day.
... The following charts show the correlation between tax rates and economic growth over the periods above. The slope of the solid line in each chart is the key.

The lefthand chart shows that there is no correlation between GDP growth and the top marginal tax rates. The righthand chart shows that there might be a very modest tendency toward faster economic growth with higher capital gains rates.

- Plenty of commentators are continuing to point out the Cons' lies, hypocrisy and broken promises when it comes to cap-and-trade - with Bruce Cheadle, Paul Wells, Stephen Maher and Colin Horgan all blasting the Cons while worrying that their blatant disregard for reality might succeed as a matter of political strategy. But of course, it's worth recognizing that the latter message may turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy: if pundits want to encourage more reality-based politics, it helps not to declare new heights of dishonesty as victories.

- Meanwhile, David Pugliese reports on the Cons' latest effort to hide facts about their government from Canadian citizens, as the Department of National Defence is being instructed to look for excuses to keep accurate information out of the public eye.

- Finally, Thomas Walkom salutes Rob Ford for daring to embody the form of self-absorbed exceptionalism which the Harper Cons try to keep hidden:

Modern conservatives believe the rules don’t apply to them. Various loopholes in the U.S. system ensure that Romney pays little or no income tax. But that’s all right. He’s Mitt Romney.

Yet if poor people or seniors use the same rules to pay no income tax, they’re just grifters.

Until he was caught, Romney had the grace to try and keep his real views on the rich and poor private. Ford doesn’t bother with such niceties.
...
Not that I would get rid of Ford. He may be useless as mayor. But he does have a role — one similar to that of a medieval king’s royal fool.

Ford reminds us of the absurdity of the powerful in general and the political right in particular. He is a piece of walking self-satire. Long may he reign.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Paul Krugman comments on how Republicans' cheerleading for total corporate control - which has of course been matched at every turn by Canada's Cons - has resulted in their declaring war on any policy which could possibly result in environmental improvements:

(T)he payoff to...new rules (on mercury emissions) is huge: up to $90 billion a year in benefits compared with around $10 billion a year of costs in the form of slightly higher electricity prices. This is, as David Roberts of Grist says, a very big deal.

And it’s a deal Republicans very much want to kill.

With everything else that has been going on in U.S. politics recently, the G.O.P.’s radical anti-environmental turn hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves. But something remarkable has happened on this front. Only a few years ago, it seemed possible to be both a Republican in good standing and a serious environmentalist; during the 2008 campaign John McCain warned of the dangers of global warming and proposed a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions. Today, however, the party line is that we must not only avoid any new environmental regulations but roll back the protection we already have.

And I’m not exaggerating: during the fight over the debt ceiling, Republicans tried to attach riders that, as Time magazine put it, would essentially have blocked the E.P.A. and the Interior Department from doing their jobs.
...
(W)henever you hear dire predictions about the effects of pollution regulation, you should know that special interests always make such predictions, and are always wrong. For example, power companies claimed that rules on acid rain would disrupt electricity supply and lead to soaring rates; none of that happened, and the acid rain program has become a shining example of how environmentalism and economic growth can go hand in hand.

But again, never mind: mindless opposition to “job killing” regulations is now part of what it means to be a Republican. And I have to admit that this puts something of a damper on my mood: the E.P.A. has just done a very good thing, but if a Republican — any Republican — wins next year’s election, he or she will surely try to undo this good work.

- And in other dog-bites-man news, stay tuned for another potential prosecution against a right-wing Saskatchewan political party for an alleged violation of election law.

- Dave points out the disaster that's resulted from the B.C. Libs' privatization of BC Ferries. Meanwhile, Postmedia notes that Saskatchewan's truly public model for intra-provincial transportation is doing far better than private comparators.

- Finally, Colin Horgan compares the vote mob trend which received so much attention early in 2011 to the Occupy movement which emerged later in the year:

For now, Occupy has, arguably, accomplished at least one thing. It has managed to change the conversation — something vote mobs attempted, but at which they ultimately failed.

The difference between the two is perhaps as simple as the fact that vote mobs pushed youth back to the system from which they already felt disenchanted. Occupy, on the other hand, recognized that disaffection and offered the concept of an entirely alternative system, somewhere on the other side of a few internet photos.
...
Where a quasi-movement like vote mobs failed to make anyone talk about politics differently, Occupy has done exactly that. It has changed the way virtually everyone in Canada and the United States is now talking about its most specific target, the economy. Income disparity, corporate negligence, the concept of a homegrown plutocracy — these are ideas no longer relegated to fringe elements, but are beginning to be discussed widely, along with the idea that there maybe some rot developing at the core of the current system. With that accomplished, Occupy will likely hibernate happily.

As for the voting booths, they still await the day young faces start outnumbering old ones. Though perhaps not for much longer.