Reading

This Is Your Hospital System On Covid and Privatization (Ontario Edition)

https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/niyBMplQItB5p4keDTu-HEoy9CZgXDJO
Created
Tue, 19/09/2023 - 17:57
This Is Your Hospital System On Covid and Privatization (Ontario Edition)

As regular readers know, I live in Ontario and because I have cancer (no worries, my odds of dying are about 2%) I’ve been in and out of the hospital system a lot from about 2018 to now.

That means I’ve gotten to see what happened to hospital care, albeit mostly in two hospitals; but two important, well funded research and teaching hospitals.

And it has been bad. Getting imaging tests which I would have had within a month to two before Covid took almost a year. A surgeon I know told me how he was fighting to get people urgent care. I’m lucky, I have a slow growing type of cancer, if I’d had something fast, odds are I’d be dead.

Diagnosing early is important for all sorts of diseases, not just cancer, and so is getting people quick care.

Write thoughts

https://tregeagle.com/write-thoughts.html
Created
Tue, 19/09/2023 - 17:29

Like pretty much all the posts on this blog this one represents another unfinished thought. I am prompted to write this because I re-read my previous post, Showies. In it I began with my usual nostalgic claptrap before wending my way into my experience of the Silver City Show. I …

Radical universalism beyond identity

https://larspsyll.wordpress.com/2023/09/19/radical-universalism-beyond-identity/
Created
Tue, 19/09/2023 - 17:25
. The universalist ideas of the Enlightenment are still relevant, despite the numerous criticisms that have been levelled against them. The Enlightenment was characterized by a spirit of exploration that led to new discoveries in both science and culture. Rather than promoting a narrow worldview, it encouraged people to question assumptions and religious beliefs. It […]

The Impossibility of Microfoundations for Macroeconomics

https://www.profstevekeen.com/2023/09/19/the-impossibility-of-microfoundations-…
Created
Tue, 19/09/2023 - 14:41
This is a quick test of whether Word successfully exports its own inline equations to the Web, after I was informed that inline MathType equations weren’t exported. One thing which never ceases to bemuse me is the intellectual insularity of mainstream economics. Every intellectual specialization is, by necessity, insular. Specialization necessarily requires that, to have … Continue reading "The Impossibility of Microfoundations for Macroeconomics"

Trump floods the zone with nonsense

https://digbysblog.net/2023/09/18/trump-floods-the-zone-with-nonsense/
Created
Tue, 19/09/2023 - 08:30
I think Philip Bump’s analysis of the Trump interview problem is on point. The rest of the media should know this by now: Donald Trump’s success in the 2016 Republican nominating contest was, at its essence, uncomplicated. Running against a cadre of sitting and former elected officials, Trump said things they wouldn’t — mostly the things that were being said in the right-wing media and by pundits on Fox News. The reputation for “truth-telling” his supporters embrace was born of his willingness to elevate false, popular claims, particularly about the left. He wasn’t elected for his policies; in fact, he broadly rejected the idea that people cared much about policy. The only thing that’s changed over the past eight years, really, is that everyone should know the playbook by now. We should know that he will 1) flood the zone with things that are burbling on the right-wing fringe, 2) make sweeping promises without much follow-through and 3) reject any criticism out of hand, spinning it into a reason to praise himself. And so it was with his interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that aired Sunday.

War, law, political economy: thinking through forms

https://www.ppesydney.net/war-law-political-economy-thinking-through-forms/
Created
Tue, 19/09/2023 - 08:00

In the recent years, progressive lawyers have sought to bring considerations of class and political economy back to the centre of legal analysis. Coalescing around ClassCrits and, more recently, the Law and Political Economy movement, legal scholars have taken aim at the role of law in sustaining a profoundly unjust and unsustainable neoliberal political economy. This emerging body of literature highlights the (mal)distributive effects of facially neutral laws and the ways that law contributes to the constant remaking of class relations. The flip coin of this relationship, namely the effect of political economy on the existence, interpretation and application of law, is less examined, probably because of the distinctly Marxist flavour of this question.

The post War, law, political economy: thinking through forms appeared first on Progress in Political Economy (PPE).

There are no “moderate” Republicans

https://digbysblog.net/2023/09/18/there-are-no-moderate-republicans/
Created
Tue, 19/09/2023 - 07:00
Remember those so-called sensible Republicans who didn’t think they should launch an impeachment inquiry? Well, they’ve seen the light: Before House Speaker Kevin McCarthy unilaterally launched an impeachment inquiry, center-right Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., urged his party not to go down that road, saying it was “too early” given the lack of evidence against President Joe Biden. But two days after McCarthy made that decision last week, Bacon, who represents an Omaha-based district that voted for Biden in 2020, shifted his tone and said he wasn’t taking issue with it. “If there’s a high crime or misdemeanor, well, let’s get the facts,” Bacon told NBC News, adding that he had been “hesitant” about it earlier — but now it’s done, and he stands by McCarthy, R-Calif. “I don’t think it’s healthy or good for our country. So I wanted to set a high bar. I want to do it carefully. I want to do it conscientiously, do it meticulously,” Bacon said. “But it’s been done.

Trial of Honduran ex-president reveals Washington’s protection of ‘narco-state’

https://thegrayzone.com/2023/09/18/trial-honduran-president-narco-state/
Created
Tue, 19/09/2023 - 05:57

Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández goes on trial this week in New York City for overseeing a massive cocaine trafficking conspiracy. Washington learned of his dealings with narco-cartels soon after it backed a coup that brought him to power.   When then-Honduran President, Juan Orlando Hernández, set out for a pleasant jog along the National Mall while on an official state visit to Washington DC on August 13, 2019, he seemed not to have a care in the world. “Daily […]

The post Trial of Honduran ex-president reveals Washington’s protection of ‘narco-state’ first appeared on The Grayzone.

The post Trial of Honduran ex-president reveals Washington’s protection of ‘narco-state’ appeared first on The Grayzone.

Mushy pro-life principles

https://digbysblog.net/2023/09/18/mushy-pro-life-principles/
Created
Tue, 19/09/2023 - 05:30
To those who thought that Trump calling the 6-week abortion bans “terrible” in his interview this weekend would cause the “pro-life” movement to abandon him, think again. Aaron Blake of the WaPo asked Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America about it and this is what they said: If you ever thought the anti-abortion movement was about anything other than rank politics, you know better now. They are just another political interest group trying to maintain its power in the party. It’s what they’ve always been. These are people who’ve spent the last five decades screaming that abortion is murder. Now they’re talking about “ambition and common sense” and trying to sell a 15 week abortion ban in order to get votes for their side. Apparently, fetuses may be endowed with all the rights of fully formed human beings but maybe a little genocide under 15 weeks is a small price to pay to maintain political power? Looks like it.

Australia’s secretive defence establishment: the real enemies of truth and freedom

https://johnmenadue.com/australias-secretive-defence-establishment-the-real-ene…
Created
Tue, 19/09/2023 - 04:57
Australia, with fewer secrets to hide, is more compulsively secretive than the US, China or NATO. General Angus Campbell is concerned about “truth decay” and artificial intelligence, worried that eventually citizens of this country will be unable to sift fact from fiction. Countries such as Russia were using disinformation as a weapon of statecraft in America Continue reading »

Navigating policy and power – Indonesia and Australia’s energy transition

https://johnmenadue.com/navigating-policy-and-power-indonesia-and-australias-en…
Created
Tue, 19/09/2023 - 04:56
Indonesia and Australia have more to gain from energy transition – and more to lose from inaction – than any two countries in the world. But the Indonesian government must navigate significant policy challenges to attract the capital it needs for a swift, just and orderly transition. When Indonesian President Joko Widodo visited Australia recently Continue reading »