News roundup, 30 Nov 2023

- Vladimir Putin is asking Russian women to breed more to replace all the young men killed in the war in Ukraine.

- Henry Kissinger has died. Not too many people are sad about it; perhaps stuff like this is why.

- The truce in Gaza has been extended by another day and more hostages have been released. The conflict is highly divisive in the arts world, and cancel culture is in full swing for artists who criticize Israel. Here at home, the case of Arij Al Khafagi, the U of M nursing student suspended for her social media posts about the war, has been picked up by the media; in addition to the cartoon reported previously, as well as what is described in the article as "video of people searching rubble for a missing child in Gaza with a caption criticizing supporters of Israel for backing a government responsible for mass destruction and killing Palestinian civilians." Still doesn't sound like grounds for suspension to me.

- Scott Forbes has given us an optimistic but still somewhat plausible look at how things might look in Manitoba, politically and environmentally, in 2030. Hopefully the Kinew government will take it to heart and push forward.

- The Trump-stacked US Supreme Court is hearing a case brought forward by hedge fund manager (and former rightwing radio show host) George Jarkesy, who is trying to have the SEC's enforcement powers declared unconstitutional. Unfortunately the smart money seems to be on a ruling in his favour. 

- George Santos, the erratic Republican congressman from Staten Island, is expected to be expelled from the House of Representatives in a vote tomorrow.

- A Paraguayan official signed a memorandum of understanding with the "the United States of Kailasa", not realizing that the country has no internationally recognized status and is led by a fugitive guru wanted for numerous crimes, including sexual assault.

News roundup, 29 Nov 2023

- Hot on the heels of the revelation about the Saudis' efforts to push fossil fuels on the developing world, it has come out that Brazilian and Argentinian lobbyists managed to get references to reducing meat consumption scrubbed from the latest IPCC report, and big food companies plan to continue the pressure at COP28. And Italy has just outlawed cultivated meat products, while Romania is working on similar legislation. All this despite evidence that climate change is already having a negative impact on global GDP. On a more positive note, many US states are working on setting their own targets for emissions reduction, which is a step in the right direction (though how big a step depends a lot on the specifics).

- In South Korea, dog farmers are threatening to release 2 million dogs near landmarks and the homes of parliamentarians in response to a proposed ban on dog meat.

- In Australia, the Maugean Skate, a raylike fish endemic to Macquarie Harbour in Tasmania, is seriously threatened, primarily by salmon farming. The industry is claiming that up to half of all jobs on the west coast of Tasmania are linked to salmon, but others question the accuracy of the claim.

- An Indian national, Nikhil Gupta, has been indicted in the US for plans to assassinate a Sikh activist in New York, believed to be dual US-Canadian citizen Gurpatwant Singh Pannun. Prosecutors allege that this is connected to the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey as well as two other planned "jobs" in Canada.

- The Manitoba PCs, not satisfied with the temporary fuel tax relief given by the government, is demanding that it be permanently done away with. 

- Louis Riel School Division trustee Francine Champagne has resigned her seat, perhaps seeing the writing on the wall. I wonder if Karl Krebs is going to ask her for his money back?

- An Ontario judge has denied an application by the City of Kingston for an order to clear a homeless encampment, on the grounds that there is nowhere better for the residents to go.

News roundup, 28 Nov 2023

- A leaked memo from Bell Media (owner of CTV) orders journalists to avoid the use of the word "Palestine" in coverage of the situation in the Middle East. It appears that the CBC has a similar rule; Duncan McCue was forced to issue an apology after saying the P-word in an interview. They also edited the podcast version of the broadcast to remove the offending word. Funny thing is, I don't think those broadcasters prohibit their journalists from talking about Taiwan as if it were a country (nor should they) but I guess this is different for some reason.

- The pause in the fighting in Gaza seems to be mostly holding, and talks are on for another extension of the truce.

- A Saudi scheme to push African and Asian countries to consume more fossil fuels has been uncovered, just days before the start of COP28 in the UAE. Meanwhile some former world leaders, including Ban Ki-moon, Gordon Brown, Helen Clark, and Joyce Banda, are calling for oil producing states to be subjected to a $25 billion levy to help pay for the damage by the world's most vulnerable people from climate change. One can just imagine what Danielle Smith and her ilk are saying about these evil globalists coming after the money of hard-working Albertans.

- While boomers are often rightly ridiculed for blaming the difficulties of millennials on their supposed habit of blowing money on things like avocado toast rather than, say, the fact that wages aren't keeping up with inflation, there are actually good reasons for avoiding avocado toast, or indeed anything containing avocado - production at the current scale is leading to the destruction of Mexico's forests.

- Marianna Budanova, wife of Ukraine's military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov, has been hospitalized for heavy metal poisoning. The specific heavy metal or metals don't seem to have been made public, but sources from the agency have stated that they're not the sort of thing found in "ordinary civilian or military life".

- Finland has closed their entire border with Russia, accusing Russia of deliberately flooding the country with refugees in order to destabilize it.

- Americans for Prosperity, the super-PAC funded by the notorious Koch brothers, is endorsing Nikki Haley for the Republican nomination, saying she has the best chance of beating Biden in next year's presidential election.

- Canada's life expectancy has decreased for the third year in a row, with COVID-19 overtaking accidents and unintentional injuries for the first time since the the start of the pandemic in 2020, according to Statistics Canada.

- A nationwide poll has concluded that Alberta is Canada's angriest province. I can't say I'm surprised by that conclusion.

- Danielle Smith is invoking Alberta's new "sovereignty act" to fight against new federal rules designed to help decarbonize the power grid. Interestingly, Smith admits that she doesn't think she actually needs the new legislation to do this, but she's doing it anyway for symbolic reasons.

News roundup, 27 Nov 2023

- Four people who died as a result of a horrifying mass shooting in Winnipeg's West Broadway neighbourhood this past weekend have been identified. A fifth victim is clinging to life in hospital; no information about suspects or motive has been made public so far.

- Recent polling suggests that the federal Liberals are significantly behind the Tories in 34 key swing ridings that they took from the Tories in 2015. This does not bode well for those of us who want to see the Conservatives kept from power.

- The pause in the Israel-Gaza conflict has been extended by two days, but so far no sign that those displaced by the fighting will be able to return to what remains of their homes, and aid agencies are dreading what will happen when the fighting resumes. In the US, activists are staging a hunger strike in front of the White House, calling for Biden to press Israel towards a lasting truce. And in Saskatchewan, an NDP MLA has been forced to apologize for liking someone's Instagram post of a video in which people can be heard chanting the "from the river to the sea" slogan.

- Getting people to eat less meat is a huge challenge. Since it's not the sort of thing that can be realistically legislated, some are looking at what kind of "nudges" can be employed to get people to freely choose to reduce their meat consumption.

- It has emerged that the UAE had plans to use the COP28 summit to make deals on the sale of fossil fuels. I have to say that this is a bit of a conflict of interest.

- A BC man opposed to children learning of the existence of LGBT* people led police on a low speed chase in a tractor before being run off the road. Video here.

- A company that sold tickets for a three-year "Life at Sea" cruise has cancelled the cruise after two postponements and offered refunds, after admitting that they hadn't been able to scrounge up a boat for the cruise. Some of the prospective passengers are now in a bad way, having sold or rented out their homes in anticipation of being away for three years. Oops.

News roundup, 26 Nov 2023

 - The Globe and Mail has compiled a list of the 100 most livable municipalities in Canada. Winnipeg came third, just after Victoria and North Vancouver; the only other Manitoba entries are Brandon at #22 and East St. Paul at #69. Other highlights: Calgary is #8, Vancouver is #14, Ottawa #24, Hamilton #39, Waterloo #56, Gatineau #58, Toronto #64, and Surrey #66. I have to question their methodology, though, based on the fact that Montreal didn't make the top 100 at all, although Westmount came in at #16. And the only cities in Atlantic Canada that made the list are Fredericton at #43 and Dieppe at #60; at this rate I'll have to stop making fun of New Brunswick.

- It seems that Joe Biden's biggest asset in terms of his reelection chances is Donald Trump. Fortunately for sanity, Trump remains well in the lead for the GOP nomination, though it would be wise to keep an eye on former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, as she is campaigning hard.

- The Manitoba government is having a go at the low-hanging fruit on the healthcare front by addressing the slower than necessary discharge rate from hospitals. Hopefully this is a first of many steps on the long road from "totally awful" to "not too bad".

- Winnipeg Transit employees have rejected a proposed settlement offer. No strike yet, but they will be refusing voluntary overtime.

- The City of Winnipeg is taking a tentative step towards partially reversing the privatization of garbage collection services; under a proposal approved by council's water and waste committee, collection in the downtown as well as the North End and the greater West End would be taken in-house.

- Seventeen more hostages (14 Israelis and 3 foreign nationals) have been released by Hamas. Sadly, the US seems unwilling to keep a serious leash on their top strategic asset in the Middle East; Biden wants to make it easier for Israel to get American weapons without congressional oversight.

- In the US, three university students of Palestinian descent were shot and wounded en route to a family dinner; what is shocking is that this happened not in Texas or Oklahoma but in normally peaceful Vermont.

- Virgin Atlantic will be testing the ability to fly a Boeing 787 from London to New York powered entirely by fuel made from used cooking oil. While this is impressive, we shouldn't kid ourselves into thinking it will be possible to switch over to this fuel and keep the world's current commercial fleet at its current size. This is one of the hard truths that a lot of otherwise progressive people turn their eyes away from - if we want to limit the scale of the coming climate change mess, we just can't keep flying as often as we do now. Progressives, naturally, don't like the idea that we have to narrow our horizons, but we have to.

News roundup, 25 Nov 2023

- Following a vicious stabbing attack on schoolchildren in Dublin, a mob of hooligans rioted in the city centre, looting and burning, following rightwing agitation via social media suggesting that the attacker was a foreign national. I don't think I'm the first to wonder how trashing your national capital is supposed to be an expression of love for your country, but then I don't understand the far-right mind in general I guess. An imam is warning his community to avoid the city this weekend.

- The prisoner exchange between Israel and Gaza is in progress. Hamas has handed over 13 Israeli captives and four Thai citizens who got caught up in the mess; Israel is now expected to release 39 Palestinian prisoners. Apparently the ceasefire doesn't apply to Lebanon, though; a UN peacekeeping force has apparently come under fire from the IDF.

- Details in the saga of the U of M nursing student who was suspended for her social media activity regarding the conflict are still a bit unclear. The only example I've been able to find of a specific post attributed to her is this cartoon, which while certainly touching on a soft spot (it's always risky to compare the IDF to the SS no matter their actual actions) does not seem to warrant suspension. Some people in this Reddit thread are alleging that there are other posts, possibly more inflammatory, but no concrete details so far. The actual post(s) appear to have been deleted. There also doesn't seem to be a word about the case in the actual media yet, which may be a sign that the matter is sufficiently grey that it can't be conveniently pigeonholed into either side's narrative.

- The Louis Riel School Division is going to court to find a way of expelling thrice-suspended trustee Francine Champagne.

- Some information is seeping out about the firing of Open AI CEO Sam Altman. Apparently the day before he was sacked, Altman had reported a new breakthrough with the technology, and some employees had raised concerns with the board that the technology was approaching a point where it could threaten humanity. Altman was reinstated after the majority of the company's workforce threatened to resign in protest.

- Derek Chauvin, the former police officer convicted of killing George Floyd, has been stabbed and seriously injured in prison.

News roundup, 24 Nov 2023

- Winnipeg city council has approved the changes to zoning in order to unlock federal funding for housing. No surprise that Brian Mayes and Shawn Dobson voted against it, I'm a bit surprised by John Orlikow's vote though.

- The provincial government has introduced a bill to fulfill their campaign promise to temporarily lift the gas tax. While I understand the populist appeal of this, I disagree with the way it was done. I'd much prefer that they temporarily reduced the PST; that would have helped affordability for everyone, not just the people who drive, and would not incentivized people to buy big stupid trucks because they'll be a bit cheaper to fill up. Perhaps they decided that doing anything with the PST would have reminded people too much of the time the Selinger government increased it back in the day.

- On the other hand, the government is considering deferring their plan to freeze Hydro rates, citing a possible deficit at the Crown utility as a result of the dry summer.

- The RCMP officer who got slapped with his third violation of the force's code of conduct for speaking to a wanted criminal, not arresting him, and lying about it will keep his job. Kinda makes you wonder what it takes to get a Mountie actually fired.

- Real estate investors in BC who jumped on the Airbnb bandwagon are freaking out because the province is making them obey municipal by-laws. Because god forbid that they should have to actually follow the rules.

- BC is, however, deferring plans to require municipalities who want to remove homeless encampments to ensure that there is somewhere for the residents of said encampments to go before doing so. Perhaps they're hoping that the courts will do the work for them, as they did in Waterloo Region earlier this year.

- The people who died in that spectacular crash on the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls have been identified. Sure enough, no sign of terrorism, despite what Poilievre said about it at the time. For his part, Poilievre is blaming the media for making him shoot his mouth off.

- Poilievre and his party have voted against a trade agreement with Ukraine, because it makes reference to carbon taxes. He's accusing the Liberals of "imposing" a carbon tax on the downtrodden Ukrainian people, conveniently ignoring the fact that Ukraine has had a carbon tax since 2011. I think his real fear is that it could normalize putting environmental provisions in trade agreements, something he wants to avoid at all costs.

- Peru has lost over half of their glaciers since 1962. This does not bode well for the country's water supply, and we can expect a lot more migrants to show up at the US-Mexican border in coming decades as a result.

- The temporary ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza war has taken effect, and the release of hostages has begun. How long it will last remains to be seen; Gwynne Dyer suggests that both the US and Hamas would like to see it become permanent, but that Israel (or at least its government) does not. He does think that the situation could conceivably make a two-state solution possible eventually, though it's hard not to think that this is just wishful thinking. On the other hand, there is the odd vaguely hopeful sign. When a former head of Israel's secret service says that continuing the occupation of the territories could lead to the end of Israel as we know it, maybe Israelis will actually listen. Who knows?

- Geert Wilders is having difficulty putting together a coalition government. Whether he will eventually succeed, or whether sanity will prevail, remains to be seen.

News roundup, 23 Nov 2023

- Geert Wilders' far-right Party for Freedom has won a plurality of seats in the Netherlands' parliament, though it remains to be seen whether or not he'll be able to cobble together a workable coalition. One hopes the non-crazy parties will be able to put aside enough of their differences to keep him from the levers of power, but you can't necessarily count on that in these times.

- Point Douglas MLA Bernadette Smith (my own MLA) has been included in a BBC list of 100 inspiring and influential women worldwide (the only Canadian on the list), for her tireless MMWIG advocacy. The full list is here.

- The government has introduced legislation to recognize Louis Riel as the honourary first Premier of Manitoba. 

- The closure of the Arlington Bridge is expected to exacerbate traffic problems in the area. The blame game for the mess is in full swing. Some information about the history of the bridge may be found here.

- A Canadian senator, Bernadette Clement, received a torrent of threats and abuse after former Conservative leader Andrew Scheer tweeted a "wanted poster" accusing her of shutting down debate on a Tory bill to exempt farmers from the carbon tax. Much of the abuse was related to her race and/or gender, but I guess that's par for the course with those hillbillies.

- Edmonton has passed significant zoning reforms that allow more mixed use, infill, and multi-family housing.

- The US has reportedly foiled a plot to assassinate Sikh activist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a dual US-Canadian citizen, on American soil. Notably he is a friend of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was killed in Surrey earlier this year.

- One of the things that protect permafrost from melting is the insulating effect of plant litter and moss. In Alaska, wildfires have burned this layer away in places, releasing substantial amounts of methane. This worsens the very warming that made the wildfires so bad in the first place.

- The US Forest Service is proposing to allow carbon capture and storage projects to use national forests and other federal lands. This would involve piping CO₂ in from afar, and is raising concerns about what would happen if there's a major leak; CO₂ is heavier than air and could displace oxygen from low-lying areas, which is problematic to say the least in areas people use for recreation. In any case, the International Energy Agency is pouring cold water on the idea that CC&S is a viable solution to the problem, especially as energy companies are still investing far too much in fossil fuels. A better way to use forests for carbon storage is to not cut them down.

- The World Economic Forum is concerned that short-term concerns over the cost of living may limit governments' abilities to adequately deal with the climate crisis. This is a very real concern; it's enough to make a person wish that the WEF was as powerful as the conspiracy nuts believe it to be so that it could just get things done regardless of what the public thinks. In the real world, of course, leaders have to answer to their people, and as their latest report says, these short term concerns "have exposed a gap between what is scientifically necessary and politically palatable". Or, as former European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said, in a different context, "We all know what to do, but we don’t know how to get re-elected once we have done it." For a possible way out of this, noted French economist Thomas Piketty suggests that in order to win over the public for the sacrifices that will need to be made in order to limit the scale of climate disaster, it will be necessary to seriously go after the rich. He advocates a progressive carbon tax, which would allow everyone a free emissions allowance to cover actual needs, but slap much higher taxes on luxuries such as frequent holiday flights and large vehicles. As for such extravagances as private jets and short haul flights, he advocates prohibiting them entirely.

- In New Zealand, notwithstanding the swing to the right on the national level, Wellington has been quite successful in quickly rolling out an extensive cycling network. And one of the largest "carbon certifiers" in the country has announced that they will no longer accept carbon credits as a measure of carbon neutrality.

- Latest developments in the Israel-Gaza war: The announced ceasefire will not begin until Friday; meanwhile the director of the Al-Shifa Hospital has been detained for questioning by Israeli forces. Meanwhile the president of the Nursing Students' Association at the University of Manitoba has reportedly been suspended for social media posts related to the conflict; unfortunately I have found very little in the way of details so far. And in the UK, several BBC journalists are accusing the corporation of excessive bias in the coverage of the conflict.

News roundup, 22 Nov 2023

- More information about the plans to improve Winnipeg Transit, potentially to take effect in June of 2025. The plan will nearly triple the number of residents living within walking distance of a route with service every 10 minutes during rush hour and every 15 minutes at other times. Again, the major bottleneck is staffing; this will require safety improvements for drivers including better shields. There is also a plan to equip supervisors with naloxone kits, something sadly necessary in this day and age.

- An explosion in a vehicle on the Rainbow Bridge over the Niagara River between Ontario and New York has killed two people. It is not known at present whether the explosion was intentional, but it is being investigated as such. Update: the latest info suggests that it was an accident.

- Manitoba will be making birth control free with a prescription, winning much praise from advocates.

- The Arlington Bridge is closed indefinitely due to safety concerns about the deteriorating structure, which was built in 1911. The final fate of the bridge will be determined following a report, due in February 2024, which will examine the possibility of extending its life for another 25 years.

- A patient has died at the Grace Hospital after waiting 33 hours in the emergency ward. The new government has certainly got its work cut out for it after all the years of Tory neglect.

- Concerns have been raised by some about the fire risk for electric vehicles compared to gasoline or diesel powered ones. The available evidence, however, suggests otherwise, though there are some uncertainties, and it is true that fires in EVs are more difficult to fight. The bigger risk, however, is with e-bikes and e-scooters, which are much less stringently regulated than cars. And another concern may be mitigated - old EV batteries, even when no longer satisfactory to power a vehicle, could still be good enough to use for energy storage in solar farms. Also positive is that Portugal ran entirely on renewable energy for 149 hours straight between the 31st of October and the 6th of November.

- The bigger picture is still not looking good, though. The governments of 57 countries, accounting for 90% of the world’s energy sector, plan to double renewable energy capacity as per the goals of the International Energy Agency. Unfortunately, it will be necessary to triple it, as well as take numerous other measures, in order to keep within the 1.5 °C limit. Existing plans, even if implemented, would still mean a rise of between 2.5 and 2.9 °C. And economic models currently in use appear to underestimate the impact of climate change on the global economy, the only thing the powers that be seem to care about. It's a virtual certainty that extensive adaptation measures will be necessary.

- The US Department of Agriculture has updated their plant hardiness zone map to reflect contemporary climatic conditions.

- The UK's Advertising Standards Authority has banned a Toyota ad campaign on the grounds that it promotes environmentally damaging off-road driving.

- Israel and Hamas have agreed to a 4 day ceasefire, once an agreed upon prisoner swap occurs. Some analysts think that this pause will benefit Israel militarily, though it may harm Netanyahu politically.

- A judge in Quebec has ordered the McGill University student union to defer the adoption of a policy, adopted by 78% of the voting student body, which calls on the university to condemn the bombing of Gaza as well as to cut ties with corporations complicit in the matter. This follows an injunction request from a student, with the backing of B’nai Brith Canada, citing "rising tensions" on campus regarding the conflict. Meanwhile in Hollywood, Susan Sarandon has been dropped by her talent agency after saying at a rally that Jewish Americans are "getting a taste of what it feels like to be a Muslim in this country, so often subjected to violence", and another actor, Melissa Barrera, has been fired by the makers of the Scream series of movies over a series of tweets on the matter that some consider to be antisemitic.

News roundup, 21 Nov 2023

- The new president-elect of Argentina, Javier Milei, is really big on freedom. He wants, for example, to allow the sale of babies (parental rights, ya know) and to lower the age of consent. Oh, and he's really, really big on bitcoin, and claims to have gotten his ideas telepathically from his dead dog. Of course, in Canada we once had a prime minister who spoke to his dead dog on occasion, but Milei seems a lot more dangerous than King ever was.

- The Gaza war has now killed more journalists than any war since they started counting that particular statistic a few decades ago. 

- A physician has been suspended from his role as a medical resident for pro-Palestinian posts on social media that some deemed antisemitic; one such post cited by the complainer was singled out for having a picture showing a sign with the "from the river to the sea" slogan, notwithstanding the fact that even in the Jewish community not everyone agrees that it is antisemitic. One can't help but notice that more efforts are being made to stop the use of that slogan than to stop actual antisemitism.

- The new legislative session in Manitoba has begun, and the government has introduced their throne speech. There's going to have to be some managing of expectations, since the fiscal situation apparently isn't as good as it previously appeared when the previous government was claiming a surplus. We'll have to see how it goes...

- A family who announced their intention to go car-free earlier this year has abandoned their plans due to concerns about the reliability and safety of Winnipeg Transit. This brings to mind an awkward truth. Improving reliability will likely require hiring more drivers and, equally important, retaining the ones they have. Improving safety (and the perception of safety) will likely require some measures that will make some people uncomfortable. Putting security on buses, for instance, which is apparently in the works, will inevitably be alienating to some people. The thing is, not doing so will also be alienating, and moreover will be alienating to precisely the people we need not to alienate if we want to increase ridership - namely the people who have a choice in the matter. This may sound harsh, and it is. But ultimately choices have to be made that maximize the overall good to the city as a whole, and that means putting more people in buses so that fewer of them are in cars.

- The City of Winnipeg is moving forward with plans to increase the number of trees planted, and plans to ask the province to amend the city's charter so as to enable the protection of healthy trees on private land. Because this necessarily means imposing limits on what citizens can do with their own property, it will doubtless raise the hackles of the "freedumb" crowd; hopefully the city will stand firm.

- I've always thought of cockroaches as a rarity in Winnipeg, but this is no longer the case. In the last few years their numbers have skyrocketed. Notably, seven restaurants have been forced to close due to cockroach infestations this year, compared to one in all of 2022 and none the previous year.

- Pierre Poilievre has been squawking about the fact that the new EV battery plant in Windsor could be bringing in as many as 1,600 South Korean workers. The gentleman doth protest too much, though, because a trade agreement signed by Stephen Harper, under whom Poilievre was serving, constrains the government from requiring that those jobs be filled by Canadians.

- A study by Oxfam has concluded that the richest 1% of the world's population are responsible for as much in the way of emissions as the poorest two thirds. And a new UN report has concluded that even in the best case, there is only a 14% chance of keeping warming below 1.5 °C. Which furthers a point that I've been making for quite some time, namely that some triage is going to be required. This is something that a lot of people on the left don't want to think about, but we're going to have to. Meanwhile a lot of people on the right, of course, don't want to acknowledge that climate change is real at all; Texas is rejecting a number of school science textbooks on the grounds that they have too much information about the subject. All this is especially frustrating for people like this guy who was warning about the problem decades ago.

- There were two homicides in the North End last night, one of them right around the corner from me in the same rooming house where someone else was killed in February.

News roundup, 20 Nov 2023

- While the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is not scheduled to release a comprehensive report on the state of things for several more years, many scientists say that the issue of tipping points needs far, far more attention. One group of scientists isn't prepared to wait 5-7 years and is preparing their own report, which they intend to present at COP28 in Dubai later this month.

- Argentina has gone full MAGA, as the Trumplike Javier Milei has won the runoff election for the presidency.

- While many, including myself, welcome the move in Winnipeg to relax zoning rules, the usual NIMBY suspects are saying typical NIMBY stuff. Since you can't publicly say "we don't want people different from us in our neighbourhood", they resort to vague platitudes about "character" and claim that it will "pit neighbour against neighbour". How this will pit neighbour against neighbour is not made clear; I have heard, though, that people who have bought infill houses in some St Vital neighbourhoods are getting a cold reception from longstanding residents. So maybe "don't pit neighbour against neighbour" means "don't provoke us to show our true colours to our new neighbours".

- Nearly half of Winnipeg Transit's employees are eligible for retirement in the next five years. Hopefully this doesn't cause trouble for Transit's ambitious plans to improve the network. In related news, Transit is planning to test shatterproof glass for bus shelters, to keep them from getting smashed quite so often. Seems like a good idea to me. Interestingly, they don't plan to release the pilot locations lest members of the public conduct their own impromptu testing. If the pilot is successful, it would be interesting to monitor whether other forms of vandalism increase due to a sort of "displaced aggression", or whether they decrease (as the much abused "broken windows" theory would predict).

- An MLA from the Saskatchewan Party (you know, the people who are supposedly so concerned about sexual morals that they don't want children to see any books about sex- and gender-related subjects lest they learn something) has been charged with communicating for the purposes of prostitution.

- A man entered a veterinary clinic (a mere 150 metres from my front door, incidentally) and pulled a knife on staff, attempting to stab one of them before they fled to back rooms. The man then locked the front doors of the clinic and began to wound himself when police arrived. He was successfully captured alive and was the only person injured in the incident. The veterinarian is one who has been the subject of numerous complaints, however the suspect and the people threatened were apparently not known to one another, so the fact that it was this clinic may be incidental. Perhaps there was meth to his madness.

- Hamilton's transit workers are returning to work following a tentative deal.

- A bronze sculpture of a horse's head, weighing about 90 kilograms, was stolen from a gallery in Vancouver. The effort that would have been required is considerable; a hydraulic lift was used to install the sculpture in the first place, but it was pulled off extremely quickly. Hopefully they're checking all the scrap metal dealers in Metro Vancouver for the item.

- The director of the University of Alberta's Sexual Assault Centre has been fired after signing an open letter that called reports of rape by Hamas attackers last month an "unverified accusation". This seems to have been provoked by a complaint by the Jewish Federation of Edmonton, who in a social media post said "Shouldn’t a sexual assault centre believe all victims and not just the non-Jewish ones?" One could argue that there's a difference in believing reports by individual persons and believing reports by a state, but perhaps we're not supposed to talk about that right now.

- The federal government is removing the ability to claim short-term rental-related expenses on your taxes in areas that restrict such rentals. Up until now the CRA has not penalized people who flout local by-laws regarding this, leaving enforcement entirely up to the municipalities.

- In Nova Scotia, the Eastern Hemlock (a coniferous tree, not to be confused with the deadly poisonous herbaceous plants like the Poison Hemlock and Water Hemlock) is suffering severely from the effects of the invasive Hemlock Woolly Adelgid, an aphidlike insect native to east Asia. Some predict that it could wipe out 90% of the hemlocks in the province; to prevent this, a beetle that preys in the pest is being imported in the hope of controlling it.

News roundup, 18 Nov 2023

- Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is polling higher than any third-party candidate in three decades. Whether this support will last, and whether it will take more votes away from Trump or from Biden, remains to be seen. Potentially, California Governor Gavin Newsom could find himself regretting his decision to overrule the parole board in the case of Sirhan Sirhan. Or not; time will tell. Note, though, that even if Kennedy takes more support from Trump than from Biden it could still end up helping Trump; if Kennedy wins enough electoral votes that no candidate has a majority in the Electoral College, there will be contingent elections in which the House of Representatives chooses the President and the Senate chooses the VP. The consequences would be unpredictable and possibly dangerous; perhaps the worst situation would be one in which the House chooses Biden and the Senate chooses Trump's running mate; it could create just the wrong sort of incentive for the MAGA crowd. 

- In Colorado, another attempt to bar Trump from the ballot for the state's Republican primary has been defeated in the courts. The decision is being appealed. Note, though, that this may not be a bad thing. If Trump is kept off the ballot in some states and not others, the aforementioned contingent election could occur.

- The Manitoba Tories are trying to avoid the kerfuffle that overshadowed their last leadership race, which led to a lawsuit by Shelly Glover to challenge the outcome.

- One of the "two Michaels", Michael Spavor, is alleging that his fellow prisoner, Michael Kovrig, actually was a spy and that his own arrest resulted from his having innocently provided Kovrig with information. He is suing the federal government over the matter.

- Two UN-run schools in Gaza, which were being used as emergency shelters, were bombed by the Israelis, with nearly 200 confirmed dead so far.

- After Media Matters for America found that antisemitic posts on the former Twitter were appearing next to ads from major corporations, and Elon Musk himself expressed approval of one such post, many of those corporations withdrew their ads. Musk is now threatening to sue the Media Matters and others.

- Romana Didulo and her followers have moved out of the school they were occupying in Richmound, Saskatchewan. They haven't gone far; a landowner in the nearby RM of Fox Valley gave them permission to set up on unused farmland. Perhaps some benevolent individual should buy them all one way tickets to Georgetown and let nature take its course.

- David McBride, the whistleblower who revealed war crimes by Australian special forces in Afghanistan, has pleaded guilty to leaking classified information to the media. He made the plea after evidence he hoped to use in his defense was suppressed by the court on national security grounds.

- The offer to allow residents of Tuvalu to resettle in Australia is being welcomed by many Tuvuluans, but not all. Some note that the country's most vulnerable citizens might lack the means to emigrate. Others fear (quite understandably) that this will be the death of their culture, though I think that ship is pretty much committed to sail anyway. The highest point in the entire country is less than five metres above the present sea level.

- SpaceX's latest product may not be ready for prime time yet.

News roundup, 17 Nov 2023

- They always used to say that "the Mounties always get their man", but this guy apparently spoke with someone who had an active warrant out for his arrest, and then lied about it. Now it's not a big secret that cops often lie, but lying to your colleagues is verboten in pretty much any police force. Given that he's previously been caught driving while impaired as well as using RCMP computers to mine bitcoin, this just might be the last straw that gets him fired.

- A record 18 candidates are on the ballot for the Kitchener Centre byelection. And Julian Ichim isn't one of them, despite having been a perennial candidate for years. Astounding.

- Dairy farmers represent only 1% of the Netherlands' GDP, but when a government-commissioned report indicated that it would be necessary to rope in the emissions from dairy farms, it unleashed a torrent of populist rage, complete with bogus stories about supposed plans to replace farmland with housing for migrants, that is rocking that normally stable country.

- More than 20 patients at the al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza have died in the last two days, as life support equipment shut down due to the lack of power. Israel is claiming that the hospital was being used for military purposes and was thus not subject to the prohibitions in international law against targeting such facilities. They can't be counted on to tell the truth about this, of course; then again, neither can Hamas. And the UN is warning that starvation is looming for the citizens of Gaza.

- In San Francisco, at least 50 people have been arrested following a pro-Palestinian protest that that shut down the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. Elsewhere in the same city, supporters and opponents of the Chinese regime clashed near hotels where China's representatives are thought to be staying.

- Ukraine is claiming some success in repelling the Russians from the east bank of the Dnipro River. Whether this will help them in the long run remains to be seen.

- Winnipeg's Executive Policy Committee has voted to continue the present work from home regime; the fact that the program has saved the city money with no loss in productivity probably helped. There will still be a vote by the full council next week.

- Workers at Manitoba's land titles office have ratified a new contract.

- A centre-right member of France's Senate has been arrested on suspicion of spiking the drink of a member of the lower house with intent to sexually assault her.

News roundup, 16 Nov 2023

- The International Cryosphere Climate Initiative (ICCI), a group of scientists specializing in all things ice, is warning that an increase of 2°C in the global temperature average will pretty much guarantee that sea levels will rise by 12 to 20 metres within a few centuries. Realistically, we should be planning for that, given that 1.5°C is probably out of reach. If you want to see what that future might look like, check out this site and plug in a few figures. A 12 metre rise in sea level would wipe a lot of major cities off the map, notably Boston, Atlantic City, Charleston, Savannah, and Miami, as well as significant parts of New York, Baltimore, and Washington. What we now call mainland Nova Scotia will be an island; PEI will be an archipelago. The west coast will fare somewhat better (much of Vancouver, San Francisco, and Los Angeles are actually on fairly high ground) but Richmond and Delta will be gone entirely, as will a big chunk of Sacramento when that part of the Central Valley turns into an inland sea. The real horrors, of course, are to be found abroad; Kolkata and Dhaka, for instance, will be inundated. Those two metros, alone, are currently home to a population comparable to that of Canada. Yep, there's going to be a lot of human migration in the coming centuries, that's for sure.

- Heather Stefanson may be be stepping down as Tory leader sooner than anticipated. I guess she doesn't find being Leader of the Opposition to be much fun.

- There are calls for investments to increase the number of people living in Winnipeg's Exchange District. Some critics are saying there should be more focus on public safety, but if you think about it, one of the biggest things that can be done to improve public safety is more eyes on the street, and more people living there will provide just that. Of course, it's a bit of a chicken and egg problem, since in order to get people living there you need them to feel safe.

- Winnipeg Transit is accelerating their plans for improvements to their network, including increased bus frequency on core routes to a minimum of every 10 minutes during rush hour and at least every 15 minutes at other times, as is already in place along the Southwest Transitway. This would be welcome; hopefully they will be able to hire enough drivers to make it work.

- A panel put together by the Alberta government to review the handling of COVID-19 is saying that the Premier and cabinet should have ultimate authority over their response to future public health emergencies and consider "alternative scientific narratives". I can't help but think of Kellyanne Conway's phrase "alternative facts" when I hear that.

- A Federal Court judge has sided with the petrochemical industry against the federal government's classification of plastic manufactured goods as "toxic".

- Some members of the Alberta NDP think the party should consider a new name to avoid being associated with the federal party.

- The man who ran his pickup truck into a family on a London street, killing four of them, has been convicted of four counts of first degree murder and one of attempted murder. Whether this meets the threshold to be treated as an act of terrorism will be determined when he is sentenced next month. In one sense that is academic because he faces a minimum of 25 years before he is eligible for parole in any case, however it would have symbolic importance.

- Israel's opposition leader Yair Lapid has called for the resignation of Netanyahu, and for a non-confidence vote in the Knesset, though perhaps more for allowing the initial Hamas attack in the first place than for the response.

- Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei has had an exhibition of his works at a British gallery indefinitely postponed because of a tweet he made in support of the Palestinians. More worryingly, some Arab aid agencies have had Western funding cut off over their condemnation of Israel's response.

- The US government is making plans about how to regulate private space travel, including such things as space stations. And a Dutch company is looking at getting people to woohoo in space - all in the name of science, of course.

News roundup, 15 Nov 2023

- The World Health Organization is condemning Israel's raid on the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza. The WHO says they have lost contact with their employees at the hospital. Meanwhile Trudeau is getting lambasted by Jewish leaders for calling on the Israelis to exercise "maximum restraint", despite the fact that he also condemned Hamas for their use of human shields. On this issue, you're supposed to go Manichean or bust, baby. The pro-Palestinian folks aren't happy with him either; in Vancouver, a mob of around 250 protesters surrounded a restaurant where Trudeau was dining; among other things, a protester was arrested for allegedly punching a cop and attempting to gouge her eyes.

- An American journalist, Catherine Herridge, has been called to testify in a civil suit by a Yanping Chen, a scientist who was investigated by the FBI, though never charged. Herridge is refusing to identify her sources; Chen's lawyers are asking the judge to hold Herridge in contempt. Now Herridge worked for Fox News at the time, so she's probably a scumbag, but forcing a journalist to reveal their sources is extremely problematic.

- The new speaker of the US House of Representatives is very, very well connected with the fundies. Not a good scene. Meanwhile, in the upper house, Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, tried to challenge Teamsters leader Sean O'Brien to a fistfight (O'Brien was testifying before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee at the time). I'm guessing that was done to demonstrate his masculinity to his base...

- The UK Supreme Court has ruled that the government's plan to ship asylum seekers to Rwanda is unlawful, saying it leaves people open to human rights breaches. For their part, the Rwandans are not happy that they're not being treated as a safe country. I believe that questioning whether Rwanda is safe has some historical foundations, though.

- A pop-up homeless shelter is in the works for Winnipeg, to be used when the wind chill is below -10 and regular shelters are full. Better than nothing, but the amount of need is enormous. Potentially better news, in the long run, is the fact that the city's Executive Policy Committee has moved the proposed zoning changes a step closer to approval. St. Vital councillor Brian Mayes is not happy, of course.

- The Conservatives are hoping to make gains in northern Ontario. Even Timmins-James Bay is said to be in play; all I can say is if the people of that riding toss out Charlie Angus in favour of some slack-jawed loogan, they'll deserve what they get.

- Indian novelist Arundhati Roy was invited to speak at the Munich Literature Festival, but will be unable to leave India to attend, due to her pending prosecution for comments she made about Kashmir some 13 years ago.

- Winnipeg police are investigating a "suspicious circumstance" in Michaëlle Jean Park. I actually saw them there as I was riding home from work yesterday; they had a large drone that they appeared to be preparing to launch. They're also investigating a double stabbing at Main and Mountain.

News roundup, 14 Nov 2023

- Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich has called for the "voluntary migration" of Palestinians in Gaza. I guess he figures it's still "voluntary" if the residents of the territory decide that conditions are intolerable and therefore leave; others have characterized this proposal in different terms. In any case, whether Israel will succeed in this or other goals remains to be seen.

- Several filmmakers have withdrawn from a festival in Amsterdam after its organizers condemned the use of the "from the river to the sea" slogan.

- A lawyer who previously represented Donald Trump has advised prosecutors in Georgia that one of Trump's aides told her in December 2020 that he would not leave the White House under "any circumstances". I guess it's a good thing he changed his mind or things could have gotten messier than they did.

- A British lawyer, with ties to Jimmy Lai, was scheduled to give a lecture in Hong Kong entitled "Judges, Democracy and the Criminal Law" at the University of Hong Kong, but the lecture was abruptly cancelled due to "unforeseen circumstances". The website for the university's law faculty was also taken offline. I guess talk of such things as judicial independence is a bit of a sore spot over there.

- Some folks are looking at ways a sustainable tourism industry could be brought into being, including flight-free travel among other things. It's promising, but I can't help but notice that all the people doing this seem to be in the EU. Something like that would be harder in Canada or the US.

- Researchers in the US and the UK are looking at the impact of putting warning labels on meat regarding the environmental consequences of eating it; results are mixed.

- The EU seems to be backing down on a promising regulatory regime for hazardous chemicals; looks like industry lobbyists got the better of them.

News roundup, 13 Nov 2023

- Peter Nygard has been convicted of the majority of the charges against him in the Toronto case. Charges in Quebec and New York are still pending, as are some civil suits.

- Hundreds of patients are trapped in Gaza's largest hospital; at least 32 life support dependent patients are reported to have died in the three days since fuel for generators ran out, with nowhere to bury them. The fuel shortage is also affecting aid agencies, including the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which expects to have to suspend its work within 48 hours. And settlers in the West Bank have ramped up the violence against Palestinians. But most alarming is the fact that both the US and Russia have bombed separate targets in Syria, which has the potential bring global catastrophe if things aren't coordinated better than they have been so far.

- Here at home, a pro-Palestinian demonstrator has been charged with causing a disturbance and had a "hate motivation" appended to the charge. The justification for the charge is an "antisemitic" slogan allegedly uttered by the accused; the slogan in question has not been confirmed by the police but is suspected to be the ubiquitous "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" chant that has been heard at numerous such protests. Naturally, a lot of people question whether this is grounds for a hate charge.

- The trade agreement between New Zealand and the EU has an interesting feature - an enforceable promise by both parties to "effectively implement" their 2030 climate targets under the Paris Agreement. Which means that if the new government tries to back out of it, they could find themselves in violation of the agreement. Nice to see rightwing governments being the ones constrained by such agreements for once; perhaps former PM Ardern (and her European counterparts) learned a lesson from the neoliberals about how to constrain your enemies' choices.

- Security guards at a Shoppers Drug Mart in Winnipeg's Osborne Village neighbourhood confronted someone who they considered to be suspicious. It appears that the suspect panicked and ran for the exit, stabbing three people on her way out. No fatalities, but not a good scene.

- David Cameron is back in the UK's cabinet as foreign secretary. I guess they figure he hadn't already done enough to ruin the country as PM and needed another shot at it. Suella Braverman has been turfed from cabinet, leading to rightwing backbenchers meeting to discuss the matter (and presumably stage a coup against Rishi Sunak).

News roundup, 12 Nov 2023

- A huge rally was held in London in protest of the bombardment of Gaza. A group of people described as "far-right activists, Islamophobes and football supporters carrying St George’s flags" attempted to disrupt the protest, but amazingly the police acted appropriately and arrested the rightwing extremists rather than the pro-Palestinian protesters. I guess the rightwingers pushed their luck a bit too much when they actually attacked cops. In Lebanon, Hezbollah is not prepared to escalate against Israel; probably a sensible move on their part, but from the Palestinians' point of view it just goes to show how everyone throws them under the bus when it comes to the crunch.

- Canada's downtowns have yet to fully recover from the pandemic. Efforts are being made in some cities to revive them, but it will require new thinking and a lot of work. The restaurant industry desperately needs something to be done, though.

- The question of whether heat pumps will work in places with cold winters (such as the Canadian prairies) has been looked at. The answer appears to be yes, but whether it's worthwhile from a climate point of view depends on how your electricity is generated. In Manitoba it's great, but in Alberta or Saskatchewan where much of the power comes from burning fossil fuels it might produce more emissions overall than a gas furnace.

- The rightwing effort to take control of school boards has received a setback in Pennsylvania, where a Democratic slate has taken over a board that had previously received attention for book banning and anti-LGBT* behaviour.

- Pope Francis has fired a bishop in Texas for his extremism.

- A cruise ship in Australia has suffered a double whammy as passengers come down with both COVID-19 and gastroenteritis. That's an industry that really deserves to die for numerous reasons; hopefully stuff like this will make it less attractive.

News roundup, 11 Nov 2023

- Earth just experienced the hottest 12-month period ever recorded. This does not stop the fossil fuel industry from shamelessly filling up international climate conferences with their representatives, in an effort to sway things in their (short term) favour. A slightly more positive sign is that solar power is really taking off despite the dinosaurs' efforts; it is expected that it will produce a bigger share of America's electricity than hydropower next year. And Australia has offered to resettle the residents of Tuvalu when rising sea levels make their country uninhabitable.

- A chemical used in the manufacture of automobile tires, which is released into the environment as the tires wear, is quite toxic to aquatic life. This is now being investigated by the US Environmental Protection Agency, so hopefully it will be banned soon (though the problem of microplastics from tire dust will remain).

- Gaza's largest hospital is now without power, and the lives of patients (including newborns in incubators) are in grave danger. Some may recall from the first Gulf war back in 1991 how a false story was spread alleging that Iraqi soldiers ripped babies from incubators in a Kuwait hospital. Now something rather similar to that has actually happened, but it probably won't get the same amount of exposure in Western media.

- A Winnipeg woman says that police harassed and threatened her family, including her 11 year old niece, after they were pulled over on the way back from a pro-Palestine protest. Meanwhile in Florida, a Republican state legislator, when asked how many dead Palestinians would be enough, replied "All of them".

- Donald Trump is now openly saying that since he considers the legal measures being used against him to be nothing but a Democrat witch hunt, he will be doing the same if he regains the presidency. Worryingly, some recent polling favours Trump in a two way race between him and Biden, although if Robert F. Kennedy Jr. runs as an independent he will likely pull more votes from Trump than Biden despite his family's strong Democratic heritage; the conspiracy nutters love him. That said, if no candidate has a majority in the Electoral College, the House of Representatives will decide the presidency, and that could still put Trump back in.

- Dr. Sanjiv Gandhi has been forced out of his post as deputy leader of the BC Green Party after he clicked the "like" button on a social media post which included a reference to Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry as "#QueenBonnie 'Mengele' Henry". Now obviously comparing Dr. Henry to Mengele is way, way out of line, and probably originated in far-right circles. Interestingly, though, the account that the post came from doesn't really fit the profile, and the offending post consists primarily of a screenshot of a letter to the editor of a Victoria newspaper accusing the government of mismanaging COVID-19 (which is presumably what Dr. Gandhi was responding to) and just makes the Mengele reference in passing. And I think almost anyone who uses social media has thoughtlessly clicked "like" on something without properly reading it. Nonetheless, in this political climate anything that could be seen as having even the slightest whiff of antisemitism is too much for a political party to ignore.

News roundup, 9 Nov 2023

- You know how they were claiming that they had to bomb that hospital because there were Hamas tunnels under it? Well, maybe not. Meanwhile, the WHO is warning that conditions in Gaza are perfect for disease outbreaks, and the Washington Post has taken down a cartoon related to the conflict that has been condemned as racist. The cartoon can still be seen here, for the curious. Disturbingly, shots were fired at two Jewish schools in Montreal, although nobody was hurt. On the positive side, Israel has agreed to a few "pauses" in the campaign on humanitarian grounds.

- The use of drones to deliver contraband to prisons is getting out of hand, and has led to a surge in violence. Besides making the job of prison staff much more difficult, there are so many lockdowns that there are concerns about the disruption of rehabilitation programs for the prisoners.

- The Kinew government's clean energy plans are getting mixed reviews. The plans to increase the use of heat pumps, including subsidized installation, are being praised, but the feasibility of producing hydrogen as a replacement for natural gas for home heating is being questioned. And the mixed messaging on the carbon tax is raising eyebrows as well.

- Flin Flon MLA Tom Lindsay has been acclaimed as speaker of the Manitoba legislature.

- LRSD trustee Francine Champagne has been suspended yet again, this time for using racist language on social media. She shows no sign of resigning, though; presumably she's a "true believer" and/or Karl Krebs has some kind of sway over her.

- The Minnesota Supreme Court has dismissed a petition to keep Trump off the Republican primary ballot, on the grounds that no law prohibits an ineligible candidate from appearing on a primary ballot. This does keep the door open for keeping him off the general election ballot, though.

- Speaking of the Republican primaries, candidate Vivek Ramaswamy says he wants to build a wall at the Canadian border, because there's no way good old Americans could be the source of all that fentanyl.

- In Kingston, a pilot project that provided small "sleeping cabins" for homeless people has been cancelled, but users of the program are worried about the lack of alternatives.

- The actors' strike has ended after almost four months. How this will affect Hollywood in the long term remains to be seen. Plenty more strikes going on, though, most recently Hamilton's transit workers.

- Repossessing vehicles is a dangerous job; repossessing a pickup truck in a rural area doubly so.

- The US Marines have equipped a robot dog with a rocket launcher. I can't see anything going wrong with that, can you?

News roundup, 8 Nov 2023

- A Red Cross/Red Crescent convoy carrying humanitarian aid has come under fire in Gaza City; which side in the conflict was responsible is not clear. Also far from clear is who's going to be in control of Gaza once the smoke clears. Antony Blinken says he doesn't think it should be either Israel or Hamas, but I'm sure he'll understand if the Israelis say they have no choice. In the UK, a Labour frontbencher has resigned in protest over the party's staunch support of Israel. In the US, the House of Representatives has voted to censure Rashida Tlaib, and in California someone has died in a scuffle between competing protesters. In this country, a cardiologist and professor at McMaster University is under investigation for calling for pro-Palestinian demonstrators to be deported. Despite all this, some still hold out hope for a two-state solution; not sure how plausible that is though.

- Meanwhile, looking at the bigger picture, climate change and biodiversity decline continues. In the UK, serious declines are being observed in woodland birds, and some predict forest ecosystems could collapse entirely within a few decades. Marine ecosystems are also gravely threatened by many factors, including overfishing. If something isn't done about these things, it has the potential to render such petty issues as Gaza and Ukraine moot; the suffering that would result from widespread starvation around the globe will dwarf that from those wars. Researchers are still trying to figure out how to manage and triage biodiversity, using AI in some cases. Some are working on saving coral by creating artificial reefs; while others are trying to call out disinformation. It's an uphill battle though. Meanwhile the EU seems to be caving to auto industry pressure to nerf their emissions laws. And sometimes controlling one sort of pollution can exacerbate the impact of other sorts.

- The price of olive oil is so high that gangs of thieves in Greece are cutting limbs off olive trees with chainsaws. Sometimes they take the entire tree; even when they don't, the damaged trees can take years to recover. Israeli settlers have been known to do that sort of thing to Palestinian olive farmers too, albeit with different motives.

- The proposal to loosen zoning restrictions in Winnipeg is drawing criticism from some who question whether it will be enough to solve the housing crisis, as well as from NIMBYs who don't want any of those darned poors in their neighbourhoods, thank you very much.

- Winnipeg's notorious Balmoral Hotel has been purchased by a consortium including Pimicikamak Cree Nation, a local psychiatrist, and an entrepreneur; they plan to transform it into a health centre and use the hotel rooms for patients from northern communities coming to the city. Sounds like a big improvement.

- Another strike looms in the US; this time it's American Airlines' flight attendants who are preparing to walk out.

- A federal law in the US that bans anyone convicted of domestic violence from owning firearms is being challenged in the Trump-stacked Supreme Court. Because freedom, man.

- A Republican legislator in New Hampshire has introduced a bill to allow residents of the state to own kangaroos without the need to buy a permit. Because freedom, man.

- A small-town mayor and pastor in Alabama had his secret drag identity outed by a rightwing news site. In response, he atoned in the all-American way, by shooting himself. Naturally, the ethics of outing someone in the media like this are being called into question.