Six In The Morning

Your Humpday update!


1 AFFORDABLE HOUSING? The Sask Party government plans some investment. (Leader-Post.)

2 THEY'RE UP TO SOMETHING! The opposition NDP says Brad Wall and company need to be more forthcoming about their nuclear plans. (Leader-Post)

3 TILMAN Speaks. (Leader-Post)

4 MORE GUNS TO MORE PEOPLE The Americans want to arm Afghan militias, but critics say this might just mean better-armed criminals. (Guardian/AP)

5 CARDED A charge card company tightens up the rules for debt-happy Canadians. (Toronto Star)

6 TRADE WAR? WHO SAID ANYTHING ABOUT A TRADE WAR? Obama makes noises that sound like a retreat from his previous position. (Globe And Mail, Salon)

(And about that... I was two-thirds asleep yesterday morning when I heard something on the CBC from some pundit who said something about U.S. protectionism being "unethical" (or maybe it was "immoral"). Can't remember the details, the cat was on my ears making it hard to hear. Okay, look: I know U.S. politicians might be (are) just pandering to voters and political donors with the "buy U.S.A." rhetoric but that said, there's something profoundly ETHICAL about a country talking about putting it's own citizens/workers/industries first. This is a problem critics have always had with free trade agreements: they put foriegn interests on the same field as domestic ones and local needs/interests lose out. This is one of the criticisms levelled at TILMA (the BC-Alberta Trade Investment Labour Mobility Pact) actually--that it will reduce Provincial government's abilities to make decisions in the public interest on things like investment and tendering and professional standards .)