Thursday, June 15, 2017

Worth Reading - June 15, 2017

The next provincial election is 51 weeks away. John McGrath at TVO breaks it down for us. 

Chantal Hebert takes a look at Jagmeet Singh's commitment to the federal NDP in her latest column. 

Strong Towns attempts to answer the question of why did incremental development stop?  This appears to be the third entry in a series. I recommend the second one which provides a cute example about how incrementalism works. 

Kuzgesagt put out a new video about automation and how this recent pattern of automation differs from the past and may be causing all sorts of social problems we are seeing. 

Ashley Csanady writes about the uselessness of interpreting dystopian literature literally instead of extracting its symbolic meaning. 

Justin Ling paints a very dim picture of the new Conservative leader, Andrew Scheer, by looking at the leader's positions on the issues


What if transportation decisions were taken out of politicians' hands? (It's impossible, but it's fun to dream). 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Ah, nothing like well reported, objective news stories…oops sorry it is only VICE news instead. Oh dear. Well, at least Vice conforms to our left-wing world view of conservatives. Regressive, intolerant and, that utmost of liberal sins: SOCIALLY CONSERVATIVE.

And so it begins with Andrew Scheer as with Stephen Harper. Don’t deal with the issues or policies, it is easier to delegitimise the person. He is a SOCIAL CONSERVATIVE. We saw that with ‘Stop Harper’ and we also saw that in the vile Trump campaign against Hilary Clinton. I find it discouraging. But hey ho, Scheer is a Conservative in hyper-liberal Canada…

And I read he wants to “foster a culture of free speech and inquiry” at Canada’s universities. This man seems mad, bad and dangerous to know. Free speech! Do these right-wing conservatives have no respect for our children???

Even though I never really agreed with their platform, I am all the more discouraged from the recent resignation of the UK Liberal Democrat leader, Tim Farron. He seemed a decent man with long held middle of the road Christian beliefs that informed his politics and personal. However, Christian beliefs and modern politics seem to be at odds these days. Quite telling was his statement on his resignation that he found it impossible to be a political leader “especially of a progressive, liberal party” and living “as a committed Christian.” Ironic considering our society has been incalculably shaped and formed by what is referred to as Judeo-Christian values.

The decay of modern liberalism is covered in this thought provoking (not Vice news) article: http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2017/06/tim-farrons-resignation-symbolises-decay-liberalism

Maybe it is the modern politics of outrage and grievance? “If you are not for me, then you are against me’ attitude of a lot of the media. What ever happened to respecting our differences? Scheer may be a SOCIAL CONSERVATIVE, but as the Vice story reminds us, he will not reopen abortion.

Is it possible to hold public office and hold a different opinion than held by the left-wing establishment?