The Harvest: Canada’s MAID Program, Eugenics, and the Commodification of Despair

When a state administers death as a healthcare service and then discovers the dead have commercially valuable parts, the question is no longer about dignity. It is about inventory. Something has gone structurally wrong in Canada, and the evidence is no longer ambiguous. In 2024, 16,499 Canadians died through the country’s Medical Assistance in Dying program, accounting for 5.1 percent of all deaths nationally. Since legalization in 2016, the cumulative total has surpassed 76,000. One in every twenty Canadian deaths is now a state-administered killing, dressed in the language of compassion and categorized by Health Canada not as a cause of death, but as a “health service.” That semantic sleight of hand is doing heavier lifting than any euphemism should be asked to bear.

Continue reading → The Harvest: Canada’s MAID Program, Eugenics, and the Commodification of Despair

Did the Supreme Court Wait too Long to Stuff the Gays Back in the Closet?

Jason Collins stepped out of the dark closet and into the pure light of day to make history as the first Gay professional athlete to “come out” in the four major USA team sports: Football, Basketball, Baseball and Ice Hockey.  Some in the New York media have dismissed Jason’s bravery with indifference, “So what if he’s Gay?” they bleat.  That sort of false nonchalance is an attempt to undercut Jason’s history-making move by belittling him for being something special when they think he is not.

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Careless Government vs. Malicious Agents

Jamie Grace wrote this article.

The e-governance initiatives that Anderson et al deplored in their Database State report are not, as I’ve argued previously here in Panopticonic, malicious works of a totalitarian state – they are about deploying information in a timely and accurate manner, about citizens in need of healthcare or social care. The true risk to information security and privacy comes from individuals working to intrude illegitimately into these databases and caches of personal data. I term these individuals, rather abstractly, ‘malicious agents.’

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An Unhealthy Fixation With Databases?

Jamie Grace wrote this article.

The Database State report commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, written by the UK authors Anderson et al and published in March 2009 gives a sweeping – and damning – overview of databases, IT frameworks and general ‘e-governance’ initiatives concerned with managing (and hopefully improving) public health in the UK.

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Vietnam in the Panopticon

Vietnam is not a place for reformers or dissidents — but it might very well be a harbinger of the future in Iraq and Afghanistan.  If you choose to stare back into the Panopticon watching you in Vietnam, prepare for a serve and long-term punishment in return.

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