Roundup: Games of inflation denialism

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As opposition parties continued to shitpost about the inflation numbers and the interest rate decision, it got intensely stupid. To that end, Emmett Macfarlane has coined the term “inflation denialism” to characterise these kinds of responses, and he’s completely right about it.

As well, economist Stephen Gordon has spent the day calling out “greedflation” theorists, and it was fun to watch.

Programming note: I am away for the next week and a bit, so blog posts are on pause until August. Behave in my absence, and don’t make turn this car around.

Ukraine Dispatch:

There was an early morning Russian strike on the port city of Mykolaiv that wounded 18. Russians have been targeting ports and grain infrastructure in particular in recent days, deliberately targeting it in Odessa, as well as Chornomorsk. Meanwhile, Russia pulling out of the Black Sea grain deal is worrying Ukrainian farmers, some of whom still have last year’s crop stockpiled because they couldn’t get it to market.

Good reads:

  • Prime minister Justin Trudeau had a meeting of the Incident Response Group yesterday around the situation with the BC port strike resurrecting itself.
  • First the BC port workers said they were back on strike, then that was declared illegal, so then they gave 72-hours’ notice, and then rescinded that late in the day.
  • Email records show that Correctional Services was deliberately keeping the Paul Bernardo transfer low-profile (but that doesn’t explain Mendicino’s staff).
  • Public Safety Canada has been updating their nuclear protocols and measures in the event of a nuclear exchange or incident as a result of the war in Ukraine.
  • The head of the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security is warning that ransomware is getting more sophisticated and we need to do a better job of protecting ourselves.
  • Flights are being delayed or cancelled for a lack of air traffic controllers, while NAV Canada says they’re training 400 right now and hope to increase that number.
  • A group of civil society NGOs says that Canada won’t meet our 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, and that the government isn’t tracking the data properly.
  • A report commissioned by Environmental Defence shows that it would be cheaper for oil and gas companies to cap their methane emissions than pay carbon prices.
  • The families of six military airmen and women who died aboard a Cyclone helicopter in 2020 are suing the manufacturer for gross negligence.
  • Matt Gurney has a three-part series on the challenges at play as Ontario now allows pharmacists to prescribe for certain ailments. (Parts one, two, and three).
  • Stephen Saideman gives his own dream version of the promised Defence Policy Update, because the government has been so long in delivering it.
  • Philippe Lagassé is unimpressed with how op-ed columnists like to accuse academics of shilling if they give answers they don’t like.

Odds and ends:

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