- 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.
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