Shares of the Week: The Conservatives Vote to Never Form Government Again Edition
When Bad People Lose
Rising from the rubble: London pub rebuilt brick by brick after illegal bulldozing - This is some atypical but sweet justice for a greedy land developer who hoped to get away with it. This kind of reminds me of how Brandt Developments demolished the CNIB building in Wascana Park in Regina before getting a permit to do so, likely hoping their grift to build a large commercial property in the crown jewel of our province would go unimpeded.
The Cult of Ignorance
Awkward! What can Erin O’Toole do now that Conservative Party delegates have ignored his plea to acknowledge climate change? - The Conservatives have lost two elections in a row to Justin Trudeau, someone who ran on platforms to fight climate change, and their plan to change course is to continue to deny that climate change is real? This is the perfect example of shooting oneself in the foot. And I am not afraid to say that I am loving every minute of it.
We Are All Living in Rupert Murdoch’s World - To understand the domination of conservative media in the West is to understand Rupert Murdoch, the man behind The Sun in the UK, Fox News in the US, and countless other tabloids in the English-speaking world. He almost single-handedly turned news from being something boring that informs us into something sensational that incites us. A lot of the division infecting our society today can be attributed to the pro-establishment media baron, as can the link tax that has been established in Australia recently and may be coming soon to Canada, in one last grasp to hold on to media domination.
Exploiting the Vulnerable
Canada’s Housing Bubble Is Getting Way Worse, And Young People Are Screwed - The almost exponential rise of house prices, resulting in an entire generation being shut out of the housing market, is not a good sign for the future of this country. Something eventually has to give and I just hope we have the foresight to be proactive instead of having our hand forced.
Payday lender lines of credit and instalment loans at 47% create debt traps, critics say - Poverty has been privatized and it is paid for by exploitative interest rates on people who will never be able to get ahead. The poor are being punished for being poor in this latest example of our neoliberal society’s cruelty and negligence. Canada has a public infrastructure bank and a public agricultural lender; how about we also invest in our most vulnerable people?
Rogers fines 91-year-old woman unable to return equipment due to lockdown - I’m sure this kind of thing will happen less frequently when there is fewer competition in the telecom market. On a more serious note, if the Conservatives got their way and got rid of CBC News, one could only imagine how many more seniors and other vulnerable Canadians corporations would get away with screwing over if all we had left was corporatized media to hold other corporations accountable.
Uber is Lobbying Canadian Provinces to Rewrite Labour Laws and Create a New 'Underclass of Workers' - Uber must not be allowed to have any input into the labour laws that regulate them. Government needs to finally evolve our laws to catch up with the technology that seeks to exploit this purposeful and unnecessary sluggishness. Besides, there is absolutely nothing in the way of Uber immediately classifying their drivers as workers entitled to benefits, as they were recently forced to in the UK by the Supreme Court.
Bonus: Uber 'willing to change' as drivers get minimum wage, holiday pay and pensions - How about that: Uber will remain in Britain, and won’t raise fares either, now that they have to treat their drivers as workers. Funny how that works.
Bessemer Opens the Floodgates: Amazon Workers All Over the Country Are Trying to Unionize USA - Amazon warehouse workers across America are fed up with the way they are being treated, from having their every moment tracked, including bathroom breaks, to retaliations for any kind of raising of worker’s concerns. Amazon is obviously terrified of their workers winning power for themselves, as the fight against rising inequality and labour exploitation continues.
Bonus: Amazon driver quits, saying the final straw was the company's new AI-powered truck cameras that can sense when workers yawn or don't use a seatbelt - This sounds like a plot straight out of a Black Mirror episode.
Not your 'boss babe': Why I avoid multi-level marketing schemes at all costs - If it sounds too good to be true and/or your success depends more on how many people you recruit than how many products you sell, you are likely being recruited into a pyramid scheme. Run away. Run away fast.
Mister Bone Saw
Top Saudi official issued death threat against UN's Khashoggi investigator - Saudi Arabia is a theocratic, misogynistic, terrorist state and is one of the most detestable countries in the world today. Canada cannot both claim to be for human rights and continue to allow the Saudi's blood money to flow into our country.
Bonus: Biden defends move not to punish Saudi crown prince over Khashoggi killing - It is a little suspicious that Saudi Arabia, a country that foments terrorism in the Middle East, provided a majority of the terrorists that caused 9/11, and brutally murdered an American-based journalist in a NATO country, continues to get a free pass, yet the failed petro-state of Russia is supposedly more of a threat. Let’s be honest here, it’s all about money and power, and nothing to do about freedom and democracy.
I Will Take 'Anyone But That Asshole' for $1000, Alex
Dr. Oz and Nutritional Supplements: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) YouTube - In the continued trend of having celebrity guests host Jeopardy in the late Alex Trebek’s place, the next celebratory up is none other than snake-oil salesman and suburban housewife fodder, Dr Oz. In case you need a reminder about how shameful it is to have this sham of a human fill in for Trebek, watch this breakdown that John Oliver did of him a few years ago.
