News roundup, 15 Nov 2024

- Canada Post has been shut down by a strike as 55,000 CUPW workers walked off the job this morning.

- As expected, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been selected by Donald Trump for the key cabinet position of Secretary of Health and Human Services. Critics are calling Kennedy a "clear and present danger" to public health; I don't disagree, though it's a safe bet that anyone appointed by Trump is a clear and present danger to something important.

- As with several recent elections, polls in the 2024 US election underestimated Donald Trump's support by about 3%. This was the case across all the swing states. One possible explanation, of course, is that the kind of people who vote for Trump are also the kind of people who think pollsters are part of the Deep State or similar nonsense. Based on exit polls, it is also apparent that Trump did especially well among the "late deciders". Exit polling has also revealed that white voters to represent a larger share of the vote than in recent elections. This might mean that Trump was uniquely successful in bringing out low-propensity voters, or else that nonwhite voters are becoming disillusioned and not turning out for the Democrats the way they have in the past.

- The Manitoba government has announced that the crackdown on retail theft will be made permanent by providing funding for 12 new police officers. Probably a necessary move; hopefully other equally necessary but less visible measures to address the underlying social conditions will not be forgotten, though.

- The Alberta government has purged the leadership of the Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo). Finance minister Nate Horner attempts to justify this based on efficiency, but this is disputed by others, and the fact that the corporation had been exploring the possibility of creating a fund focused on the transition to a carbon-neutral economy probably had something to do with the matter.

- The RCMP are investigating after hateful letters were sent to staff at an elementary school in Vanderhoof, BC. Authorities are keeping tight-lipped about the content of the letters, but I'd wager that it had something to do with sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) lessons in classes.

News roundup, 14 Nov 2024

- Tom Homan, selected by Donald Trump to be his "border czar", has cited the Canadian border as an "extreme national security vulnerability" and says that there will be "tough conversations" with Ottawa about security. Andrew Coyne, in yet another grim prognostication, predicts that Trump's plans for mass deportations may lead to numerous undocumented residents in the US trying to flee to Canada - and as Coyne points out, "whatever our leaders may say, we have neither the capacity to accommodate them all nor to refuse them – not with a nearly 9,000-kilometre border we have never had to defend until now."

- A strange fact - a significant number of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's constituents voted for her, but voted for Trump for president. To her credit, AOC did not sweep this fact under the rug, but instead went to her Instagram page to ask what they had to say. Their answers may hold a fair bit of significance for the Democratic Party, assuming that they have another chance in 2028. On the subject of counterintuitive voting decisions, it's worth noting that despite often using highly racist rhetoric, Trump actually won 46% of the Latino vote, and 55% of the Latino male vote. Juan Williams thinks that the reason is painfully simple - a lot of Latino men did not want a woman as president and were willing to overlook Trump's racism for that reason. Plenty of discussion in this Reddit thread.

- A Dutch appeals court has struck down a 2021 order from a lower court that would have forced Shell to cut emissions by 45% over 2019 levels by 2030. The court ruled, essentially, that while Shell does have a responsibility to cut emissions, and that developing new oil and gas fields are at odds with this, courts are not empowered to make any specific order (such as an end to new exploration).

- A Tory candidate in Nova Scotia's provincial election, which is being held later this month, is being accused by the Liberals of illegally bribing voters after her campaign handed out Tim Hortons gift cards to citizens.

- The controversy over math requirements for education students in Manitoba is being debated in the pages of the Winnipeg Free Press, with mathematician Anna Stokke facing off against education professor Martha Koch. Koch argues that such decisions should be based on research, which she says supports the changes being brought in by the government. That is all very well except that what we're talking about here is social science research, which is usually a lot less rigourous than the term "research" would suggest to the layperson. That said, keeping the requirements more stringent could have the disadvantage of reducing the number of people going into teaching; maybe we're stuck with a tradeoff between quantity and quality of teachers here.

- Wab Kinew has conducted a cabinet shuffle, splitting some department responsibilities and adding Nellie Kennedy, Mike Moroz, and Mintu Sandhu to the cabinet. Moroz will head the new Department of Innovation and New Technology. Kennedy is the first Muslim woman to serve in the province's cabinet.

- Delays in Ontario's court system are now so bad that the majority of criminal cases are now ending before trial, in order to comply with the 2016 R v Jordan ruling. This includes not just petty crimes but serious ones like sexual assault. The situation is being attributed to a shortage of judges, prosecutors, and actual courtrooms.

News roundup, 13 Nov 2024

- Donald Trump has selected his cabinet-in-waiting, as well as other key advisors. More alarming, though, is the fact that he appears to have an executive order ready to go that would establish a "warrior board" (appointed by the president of course) with the power to dismiss three- and four-star generals.

- Winnipeg has not had any snow since April and relatively little since January. This is expected to change by the end of the month, however. Meanwhile in Fergus, Ontario they just had a tornado, and the northeastern US is extremely dry - so much so that a small fire (such as seen at homeless encampments) can easily turn into an inferno.

- A teenager in BC is in critical condition in hospital with a suspected case of avian influenza; the source of infection is unknown.

- Former BC premier John Horgan has died at the age of 65, following his third bout with cancer. A detailed account of his life and career may be found here.

-The City of Winnipeg has announced that security guards at the Millennium Library will be paid a living wage, currently $19.21 per hour. An earlier proposal to require a living wage for all city employees and contractors was rejected by council last month, however.

- Winnipeg councillor Sherri Rollins is calling for a 30 km/h speed limit for the section of Wellington Crescent where cyclist Rob Jenner was killed earlier this year. Rollins notes that in addition to the aforementioned fatality, there have been a number of other accidents on that stretch, and says that the fence at St. Mary's Academy has been damaged numerous times over the years by vehicles that left the road.

- Due to an unfortunate bit of confusion, surgeons at Winnipeg's Grace Hospital amputated the wrong leg from a patient. Admittedly there was a good chance that both legs would have had to come off eventually anyhow, but still...

- North Korean soldiers fighting for the Russians in Ukraine have gotten relatively unrestricted internet access for the first time in their lives; predictably some of them have gotten obsessed with porn.

News roundup, 12 Nov 2024

- The FBI is investigating after numerous black Americans report receiving racist text messages in the wake of last week's election, telling them to report to a plantation to pick cotton. Alarmingly, many of the texts addressed the recipients by name.

- The Canadian Union of Postal Workers has given notice that they will be in a legal strike position as of Friday, though they have not formally set a date to actually walk out.

- An addictions treatment centre that had purchased numerous units in a condo complex in Winnipeg's Lindenwoods neighbourhood as transitional housing has received a cease and desist order after the condo association took them to court. The complex had a policy against using units for "business purposes", and while acting as a regular landlord was exempt, the court has ruled that this was not and is forcing the centre's clients to leave. Because "property values" or something. Some of the clients had apparently been followed by other residents and had their pictures taken. Well, that's Lindenwoods for you I guess...

- A poll has found that none of the potential candidates for the leadership of the federal Liberals is particularly popular with the Canadian public. Mark Carney scored highest, with 18% of those polled approving of him, but "none of the above" was the choice of 26% of respondents.

- Gwynne Dyer attempts to put last week's US election results in perspective, saying for instance that while the plan to push ahead with oil exploration is worrisome, the global demand for oil is declining, which might limit the severity of such moves. On the other hand Dyer thinks it likely that Ukraine will be thrown under the bus and that Gaza is pretty much finished (then again, Gaza's prospects were dim regardless of the outcome of the election).

- Century-old weather records are tumbling; last Thursday it was almost 23°C in Sainte-Clotilde, Quebec. Slightly more promising is the fact that deforestation in the Amazon has dropped by over 30% compared to the previous year. However, reading the fine print it becomes apparent that it's not as good as it sounds; fire damage is classified as "degradation" rather than deforestation, and there have been a lot of fires.

Aftermath of the US election

So it's over. The American people have elected Donald Trump as their next president. The Republicans have also gained control of the Senate; the state of the House of Representatives is yet to be determined but a Republican majority seems extremely likely.

The consequences of this are hard to predict with certainty, but it is not going to be good. The Globe and Mail's Andrew Coyne paints an especially bleak picture - he figures Ukraine is likely finished (notwithstanding Zelensky's desperate attempt to put on a brave face); I think he is likely correct in that assessment. Scarier is the possibility that this will embolden Putin to invade other European countries. Coyne reckons NATO can be considered a non-factor here. He may be right about that; if Putin concurs he may well try to conquer the Baltic states and parts of Poland. Some more alarmist types think he would go beyond that; I have my doubts (Russia would be pretty badly overextended in such a scenario); the most dangerous possible situation, though, is if the alarmists prevail and the nuclear-armed UK and France send troops in and get into direct combat with Russia.

Another specter raised by Coyne is that of China having a go at Taiwan. That seems a lot less likely to me; the US is heavily dependent on microchips from Taiwan and would be much more likely to step in in such a scenario. Presumably China knows that, so they unlikely to take the risk of going up against the US right now (especially a US led by someone as unstable as Trump). This might become a bigger risk in the long term, though; the US has been trying to bring chip manufacture home, and while that has a ways to go China might bank on them throwing Taiwan under the bus a few years down the line.

Assuming (as I still do, for the time being) that nuclear disaster is averted, there is still plenty that can and will go badly. Coyne again sees severe erosion of democracy at home, with little prospect for improvement:

We should not count upon the majority of Americans coming to their senses in any event. They were not able to see Mr. Trump for what he was before: why should that change? Would they not, rather, be further coarsened by the experience of seeing their neighbours dragged off by the police, or the military, further steeled to the necessity of doing "tough things" to "restore order?"

Some won’t, of course. But they will find in time that the democratic levers they might once have pulled to demand change are no longer attached to anything. There are still elections, but the rules have been altered: there are certain obstacles, certain disadvantages if you are not with the party of power. It will seem easier at first to try to change things from within. Then it will be easier not to change things.

While Coyne focuses on only a handful of issues, there are plenty of other reasons to consider this an abject disaster. Abortion access, for starters, may not be secure even in blue states - beyond revoking the FDA's approval of mifepristone, some fear the Trump administration will make use of the archaic Comstock Act, an 1873 law that prohibits the movement by mail of any "article or thing designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion", which could include not only drugs but the equipment needed for abortions in clinics. While previous court decisions have interpreted this to mean only the mailing of these things for illegal use, the current Supreme Court can't be expected to uphold that precedent. I suppose this might create opportunities for enterprising new med school graduates in this country to set up abortion clinics in places like Emerson, Sarnia, and Windsor...

And speaking of the Supreme Court, it will probably be decades before the rightwing stranglehold on the court is broken. This means that even if non-crazy people are able to win elections at some point in the future, they will be severely constrained on what they can do.

But the worst consequence by far (assuming nuclear war is averted) is that climate change is almost certain to be a lot worse than it would have had Trump not regained power. Trump plans to completely dismantle the measures put in by the Biden administration; including the invaluable (if misnamed) Inflation Reduction Act, which has (had?) the potential to radically transform the power grid in the US by expanding renewable energy, while creating numerous jobs in the process. Some point to the fact that red states have benefited enormously from the jobs already created, which might be a disincentive for Republican representatives in those states to repeal the legislation. Others have their doubts though:

"It’s one thing to say you don’t want these tax credits repealed. That’s a good start," said Adrian Deveny, who helped write the Inflation Reduction Act when she worked for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). "It’s another thing to vote no on a [future] tax package put forward by the president."

Trump also vows to slash climate research (and most other scientific research as well); even in his first term some scientists gave up and left the country, and it is likely to be a lot worse the second time around. He further vows to rescind all manner of environmental rules, opening the door for massive fossil fuel drilling.

Regarding who is to blame for this mess, the recriminations will doubtless echo for years. Bernie Sanders has roundly condemned the Democratic leadership for years of neglecting the working class, and he is not wrong about that. More centrist types blame the Harris campaign for failure to communicate properly, for focusing too much on reasons not to vote for Trump and not enough on reasons to vote for Harris. There may be something in that too; although some were claiming record turnout this time around, the evidence suggests otherwise - turnout seems to have been lower than in 2020. That indicates that a lot of people just didn't think there was anyone to vote for.

But having said all that, much of the blame lies squarely on the American people themselves (including but not limited to the aforementioned working class). I know this is considered impolite to say in some circles; a lot of democratic idealist types (be they social democrats, liberals, or moderate conservatives) say things like "the people are always right". While it's forgivable (and gracious) for a losing candidate to say that in a concession speech, there is no way any reasonable person can say that an electorate who selected a man who is a sexual predator, racist, con artist, pathological liar, and likely spiralling into dementia has made a good and wise decision. I'm sorry, America, but you got this one wrong. Very, very wrong, and the whole world now has to figure out how to deal with the consequences.

One final thought - it's easy to imagine a microbiologist with access to CRISPR technology looking at the way things have gone, and the way it looks like they're going, and deciding to come up with a real-life version of the Captain Trips virus from Stephen King's The Stand, so as to give humanity the kind of "Great Reset" that seems so sorely needed. At this point things are so far gone that I'm not sure I'm prepared to even say they'd be wrong to do so.

News roundup, 8 Nov 2024

- Manitoba premier Wab Kinew is trying to be optimistic about the province's prospects for dealing with the incoming Trump administration, including the proposed 10% tariffs that Trump wants to impose on all imports. Disconcertingly, the best thing he could come up with was to point out that we have a lot of minerals critical to the American defense industry. Also disconcertingly, I can't think of anything better to shelter the province's economy. Meanwhile, Quebec premier François Legault is calling on the federal government to "act quickly" to secure Canada's borders, as he expects migrants fearing deportation from the US to attempt to cross the Canadian border in large numbers. And south of the border, California governor Gavin Newsom has convened a special session of the state legislature to call for increased funding for legal defenses against the anticipated actions of the incoming administration.

- Manitoba's legislative session has wrapped up for the year. The government successfully passed several significant pieces of legislation, including landmark changes to labour law (a ban on replacement workers and changes to make it easier to certify a union) as well as rules restricting the sale of machetes. Controversially, the labour provisions were included in the omnibus budget bill, something often done by governments of all stripes but seen by many as a way of avoiding scrutiny.

- One move by the Kinew government has to do with changes to the certification of teachers. Most controversial is the removal of the requirement for education students to have a minimum of six credit hours in mathematics. The Tories are opposed, of course, but more notably, University of Winnipeg mathematics professor Anna Stokke, who was among those who petitioned for the requirement to be introduced in the first place in 2015. University of Manitoba professor Martha Koch disagrees with Stokke, claiming that better math education in teachers sometimes leads to worse outcomes; it's worth noting, though, that Koch is a professor of education, not mathematics; I'm more inclined to believe what Stokke says about the actual level of math knowledge that she sees in her students than whatever pet education theory Koch is drawing on. Having said that, loosening the requirements might be helpful in alleviating the shortage of teachers; nonetheless, even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and this might be one of those occasions where the Tories are right about something.

- The Quebec government is considering legislation to force medical graduates to reimburse the government for the cost of their education unless they practice in the province for a yet-to-be-determined period of time. The government has expressed a willingness to use the notwithstanding clause in order to avoid constitutional challenges; one constitutional lawyer thinks this would not work, though, since mobility rights are guaranteed in a section of the Charter not covered by the clause.

News roundup, 7 Nov 2024

- Toronto's city manager is saying that if the province insists on pushing ahead with the forced removal of bike lanes, it should compensate the city for the cost of the initial investment in the lanes. Meanwhile a study indicates that the lanes are successful in increasing the number of people who ride. At this point my hope is that enough people who have gotten into the habit of riding will continue to do so, but in the traffic lanes instead, slowing down Doug Ford's commute further. I'd like to think there was something better than that to hope for (like a reversal in the policy), but one has to be realistic about what one hopes for.

- The Trudeau government is ordering the closure of TikTok's Canadian offices, citing unspecified national security concerns, but they aren't blocking access, nor stopping the distribution of the app. Given that the company's algorithms themselves are the source of some of the biggest concerns, this seems like the kind of half-hearted decision all too typical of the Liberals.

- Evidently stock traders see opportunities in the massive deregulation of business that is expected from Donald Trump; the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged by over 1,500 points following his election victory. Not all stocks benefited equally, though; there was a significant selloff of stock in solar manufacturers. This is largely due to Trump's vow to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, from which most of those incentives come. Of course this will partly hinge on whether the Republicans regain control of the House of Representatives, which has yet to be determined. Some also hope that the huge benefits that many red states have gotten from the legislation in terms of jobs will keep Trump from killing it entirely, but don't count on it. Overall, this is going to be very damaging to the climate, especially given the expected withdrawal from the Paris agreement, which will incentivize other countries to do the same. And the latest estimates suggest that without considerably more action than we're seeing already, the global average will increase by as much as 3.1°C by the end of the century.

- Although prior to the election the folks in the r/BoomersBeingFools subreddit assumed that baby boomers were Trump's base, the biggest shift away from the Democrats between 2020 and 2024 was among the 18-29 age group. To their credit, some folks in the aforementioned subreddit are recognizing this; some suggest that the likes of Andrew Tate were a big factor in this shift.

- Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is putting on a brave face and hoping that Trump will continue to help his country fight off their invaders. Of course he has to do that to try to retain the morale of his people, but I doubt he's actually happy with the situation.

News roundup, 6 Nov 2024

- And it's over. Donald Trump has defeated Kamala Harris and will be going back into the White House. I plan to say more about this later. It's worth noting, though, that while several false bomb threats were called into polling stations in swing states, that almost certainly was not the reason. It may not even be possible to blame the electoral college, as unfair as that institution is - as of this post, Trump is leading in the popular vote as well. No, unfortunately much of the blame for this debacle lies squarely on the American people.

- A team of outreach workers and volunteers is conducting a "street census" of homeless people in Winnipeg, while St. Boniface Street Links is trying to finalize a deal with the City of Winnipeg to lease a city-owned building as a service centre for the homeless community. Contrast the situation one province to the east, where as mentioned previously mayors of several cities in Ontario are calling for the provincial government to use the notwithstanding clause to enable them to clear out encampments, much to the chagrin of activists (and indeed anyone capable of recognizing that such measures are not going to cause homeless people to disappear).

- There's been yet another violent carjacking in Winnipeg; this one occurred in Elmwood and the victim was a delivery driver.

- The Regional Municipality of Waterloo is hoping to move ahead with plans for additional bike lanes, even as the provincial government prepares to make it more difficult. Perhaps they hope to get them under the wire before new provincial legislation comes into effect to make it more difficult, and that Doug Ford won't use a special regulation to force their removal simply because he doesn't have to drive down those streets.

- Three people have been charged after violent protests at places of worship in Brampton, Ontario. One happened at a Hindu temple while another was at a Sikh gurdwara. Of course, Pierre Poilievre can't help but say that it's all Trudeau's fault.

News roundup, 5 Nov 2024

- The polls in today's election remain extremely close. The margin of error is big enough that either candidate could win a healthy majority of electoral votes. Notably, Harris needs to win the popular vote by 2.1 points in order to have a realistic chance of actually winning the Electoral College - and she'd need to beat Trump by 4.5 points in order to have a landslide. One of the things to worry about is that if Harris' margin of victory is narrow enough that a single state could make the difference, Trump's pawns in the Supreme Court could decide to award the election to him.

- Besides the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, numerous other American newspapers have declared that they will not be endorsing any candidate. More interestingly, there seems to have been a precipitous drop in endorsements since 2016. Admittedly, there were signs of a downward trend before then (and in and of itself it might not even a bad thing), but it's really taken off since Trump first rose to the presidency. Now some of this might come down to newspaper owners preferring to avoid paying taxes, and so papers that might previously have endorsed the Republican candidate might just avoid an endorsement since endorsing Trump looks so darned bad. But it's noteworthy that among papers that have stopped endorsing candidates, a disproportionate number of them were papers based in states that Trump won and which had endorsed Clinton in that election. It sure looks like the papers are downright scared of Trump... or rather of his supporters. Which makes sense given that Trump recently said at a rally that he wouldn't mind if a few journalists got shot...

- Murray Sinclair, groundbreaking judge and senator, has died at the age of 73. A member of Peguis First Nation, he became Manitoba's first indigenous judge (and the second in Canada) in 1988, presiding over the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry in 1988 and later the Truth and Reconciliation commission before being appointed to the Senate in 2016.

- The newly elected BC legislature now faces the task of selecting a speaker. This is a tricky matter, as the speaker does not vote on bills except to break a tie, and they are constrained by convention on how to vote on such matters (essentially, they vote to preserve the status quo, so on first and second readings they vote yes to preserve debate, while on the third reading they vote no unless it is a confidence matter, in which case they vote yes). And if an NDP MLA is chosen as speaker, the NDP will have a minority government in all but name; they'll need the support of the Greens (or the Cons) to pass anything beyond a budget. Meanwhile the Cons are fulminating over an apparent error that resulted in a box containing 861 ballots not being counted on election night. It should be noted that this occurred in the constituency of Prince George-Mackenzie, a riding that the Cons won by over 5,000 votes. A smaller, yet potentially more consequential error occurred in Surrey-Guildford, in which 14 votes were initially overlooked in a constituency that the NDP held by only 27 votes. Of course the Cons will continue to scream malfeasance regardless of what any future inquiries reveal, because that's what they do.

- There's been another violent carjacking in Winnipeg, in which the driver was hit by his own vehicle after being bear-sprayed. The vehicle was later recovered but the suspect remains at large.

- Manitoba's Independent Investigation Unit, which is supposed to investigate potential criminal activity by police officers, has recommended no criminal charges for a Winnipeg cop who failed an alcohol screening after being uncooperative with RCMP officers who pulled him over near Rennie. I guess most of the members of the IIU still have to drive to work and thus are vulnerable to police harassment...

- A man who ran his truck into a march for residential school survivors after making racist threats towards the marchers has avoided jail, instead receiving a 9-month conditional sentence and a 12-month driving prohibition.

- I can't say I've ever seen a Hallmark movie (some of which are made right here in Winnipeg, incidentally). Those whose judgment I trust generally seem to think that they constitute a high crime against the cinematic arts. Others might disagree, but I think even those people could agree that overtly ageist casting policies are worthy of disapproval.

News roundup, 4 Nov 2024

- A new social media trend is calling on people to "cancel" the votes of more rightwing family members by voting for the Democrats. The Harris campaign, and others supporting them such as the Lincoln Project, are getting involved in the trend, with ads like this one that remind women that their husbands will never know who they actually voted for; not surprisingly rightwingers are having a conniption about this representing the "downfall of the American family".

- In response to last year's Supreme Court ruling which says that municipalities can't evict homeless encampments from public land if there's not enough shelter space for the people living there, the mayors of thirteen Ontario municipalities have called on Doug Ford to use the notwithstanding clause to override this decision.

- Even as a bill to limit cities' ability to build bike lanes works its way through the Ontario legislature, the Ford government is not waiting; they're moving forward with a regulation that specifically orders the removal of bike lanes from three major streets in Toronto; these YouTubers suggest that those streets might be the ones used by Doug Ford for his commute to Queen's Park from his home in Etobicoke. It won't actually solve congestion, of course, but at least Ford won't have to watch people on bikes whizz by as he steams in traffic.

- Winnipeg city councillor Vivian Santos, in her role as chair of the community services committee, questioned whether the city can afford the approximately $260,000 a year budgeted for picking up needles and other sharp objects in playgrounds. The fact that this is something they'd consider cutting is a sign of desperation. Talks are on with the province about possibly empowering the city to levy new taxes; certainly something has to be done. The city is studying the impact of some possible new taxes, including on such things as alcohol and online deliveries; curiously there is no mention of an income tax, gas tax, or sales tax among the proposals.

- A welcome sign in the lobby of Montreal's city hall will be removed following criticism of the inclusion of a picture of a woman in a hijab on the sign.

- Someone in Calgary's Bowness neighbourhood thought it would be cool to leave out a bowl of disposable razors for Halloween, with a sign saying that they couldn't afford apples "because of Trudeau".

News roundup, 1 Nov 2024

- There is a long history of the UK Labour Party sending volunteers to Democratic campaigns in the US (as well as the Conservatives and other rightwing parties sending volunteers to Republican campaigns). Now, though, Donald Trump's campaign is calling it "blatant foreign interference" and has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission.

- The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) held its annual meeting in Hobart this week. Unfortunately every substantive proposal put forward, including the extension of existing measures for the conservation of krill, was vetoed by Russia and China.

- Apparently Donald Trump has promised RFK Jr. control of several public health agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services as well as the Department of Agriculture, if he wins next week. As if there weren't enough other reasons to stop Trump..

- A Republican super-PAC, called Badger Values PAC, is contributing money to Jill Stein's campaign in Wisconsin. Sounds like the Republicans are borrowing a page from Gary Filmon's book.

- A coalition of 17 states, led by Ohio, is challenging California's right to regulate air pollution in the US Supreme Court. Prospects for a reasonable decision are not good. And speaking of the court, they could also be called upon to decide on a disputed presidential election, which is not reassuring. Biden should have enlarged the court while he had the chance.

- A group of American and Italian researchers have discovered a strain of cyanobacteria (often called "blue-green algae") that holds some promise for carbon sequestration. The particular strain, which has been nicknamed "Chonkus", is quite dense, and thus could either sink to the bottom of the ocean, (thus taking a lot of carbon down to a place where it wouldn't be liberated quickly) or be made into pellets that could potentially be used to make useful materials. To be clear, carbon sequestration on its own isn't going to be enough to solve the problem, but it could at least make things less bad than they will otherwise likely be in a few decades.

- Not only do many authoritarian governments have policies that exacerbate rather than mitigate climate change, the disasters resulting from climate change often help authoritarians win power. And the worst part of it is that when things get really bad, tackling the situation sufficiently to keep civilization alive will probably require some policies that we generally associate with authoritarianism.

News roundup, 31 Oct 2024

- An 18-year-old Florida resident has been arrested for threatening Democratic activists with a machete outside a polling station.

- Polymarket, a blockchain-based platform where bets can be placed on election outcomes, has confirmed that a single individual, using four different accounts, has bet $28 million on Donald Trump winning the US presidential election. This represents more than 1% of all bets on the outcome. The trader in question has not been publicly identified except by their accounts. The platform is currently giving 63% odds of Trump winning, considerably higher than poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight, which gives Trump a 52% chance. Some Redditors are speculating that this simply reflects the biases of those who bet on these things; betting sites tend to skew male, and this one is crypto-based which also skews male. Hopefully this is the case...

- Pierre Poilievre is whining that it would be "not fair" for the Liberals to replace Trudeau as leader before the next election. I guess he's concerned that it might force the Cons to actually talk about policy, which is something of a weak point with that party.

- University of Pennsylvania economist Benjamin Keys suggests that the growing risk of climate related disasters should encourage people to reconsider whether it's a good idea to buy a house, at least if you live in a high-risk area. Given that insurance and property taxes have the potential to increase very suddenly, and that insurance might be difficult or impossible to obtain in the future, it might be safer to rent in such places.

- Mount Fuji has seen no snow at all this fall, the first time that this has occurred in the 130 years since detailed records began.

- Peg City Car Co-op, with the help of the Assiniboine Credit Union, is working on electrifying its fleet; the credit union is covering the cost of two charging stations to facilitate this.

- Kelly Vasas, the owner of the College Avenue building where all the tenants were illegally evicted this past summer, tried pulling the same stunt at another building he owns in August. It's almost as if the maximum fines for such actions are so small as to be just the cost of doing business for slumlords like him.

- New Zealand's governing coalition recently banned the public display of gang patches. The leader of one of the parties in the coalition, ACT, was asked what he thought about extending the ban to symbols such as the swastika - turns out he objects to the idea. I guess he wouldn't like us to draw the obvious conclusion, though.

- Russia has issued a fine of 2x10³⁶ rubles (approximately 2x10³⁴ US dollars) to Google for restricting Russian channels on YouTube. They probably will have a hard time collecting though.

News roundup, 30 Oct 2024

- The federal government reportedly plans to build a high speed rail link between Toronto and Quebec City, with stops in Peterborough, Ottawa, Montreal, Trois-Rivières, and Laval. Of course, they have little or no chance of being reelected next year, so they don't have to worry about being made to follow through on the plans; instead they presumably hope to blame the Conservatives when the latter inevitably cancel the project.

- Several Liberal MPs are trying to force a secret ballot vote by the entire party caucus on Justin Trudeau's leadership. Such a vote would be non-binding; whether it would have sufficient force to overcome Trudeau's ego is an open question.

- Donald Trump's campaign is disavowing a joke made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe at Trump's rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday, but not the numerous other hateful remarks made by Hinchcliffe and others at the event. The rally is already drawing comparisons with another rally held at the same venue in 1939 by the German American Bund. Some Trump supporters seem to be worried about the optics of the whole thing.

- Japan's ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party, has lost its parliamentary majority in a snap election on Monday. The opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, the only other party to have ever formed government since 1945, was the main beneficiary.

- Winnipeg police are investigating after numerous Stars of David were drawn on the sidewalk outside the Food Fare location on Portage Avenue. The store owner, who is Palestinian, commented that "If somebody went and drew a Palestinian flag in front of an Israeli or Jewish-owned store or business, I think it would be investigated as a hate crime. So in my eyes, this is definitely [one]".

- The University of Toronto's School of the Environment has announced that they will be refusing donations from fossil fuel companies; this is a positive development, but it's noteworthy that Princeton University, which made a similar move in 2022, reversed this decision earlier this year, saying that prohibiting individual faculty members from accepting such funding could be counterproductive (the U of T's policy does not constrain individual faculty members in the same way). And while Princeton says they will continue to divest from fossil fuel companies, they will no longer track their divestiture publicly.

- The city of Brampton, Ontario is trying to crack down on illegal rentals. Awkwardly, a city councillor is listed as co-owner of a house with a suite that was illegally rented out. When confronted about this, he initially denied ownership, then accused "City Hall insiders" of "leaking" the information.

News roundup, 29 Oct 2024

- The BC NDP appears to have the narrowest of majorities after the absentee ballots were counted in the hotly contested constituency of Surrey-Guildford. However, because their margin of victory was only 27 votes (less than 1/500 of the total votes cast) a judicial recount is automatic. Meanwhile Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe has secured a majority in yesterday's election in that province.

- Several incidents have occurred recently in the US in which ballot drop boxes were set on fire - most recently a couple of cases in the Portland metro area (one in Portland proper, the other in Vancouver, Washington). A superficially similar sounding case in Phoenix is being blamed on someone who set fire to a mailbox in order to get locked up so he'd have somewhere to stay and was thus apparently not politically motivated.

- The two back to back hurricanes that hit Florida earlier this month are motivating some voters, though it remains to be seen if it will be enough to turn the state blue. A promising sign is that young and first-time voters are voting early in large numbers compared to previous years.

- New research on human ability to withstand heat has concluded that the "wet bulb temperature" above which the human body gains more heat from the environment than it loses is more like 31°C, rather than the 35°C that was previously assumed to be the limit. If the global temperature average exceeds 2°C above preindustrial levels, significant parts of sub-Saharan Africa, India, and even China could see mass deaths in heat waves. Note that the 31°C limit is for normal healthy adults; for the elderly the limit could be as low as 22°C.

- The decision by Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos to overrule the paper's editorial board and not endorse any candidate has led to a significant backlash, with over a quarter of a million people (representing about 8% of subscribers) cancelling their subscriptions since the announcement.

- There have definitely been some unsettling attacks in Winnipeg in the last few days. From the university student attacked in her dorm room, to a daylight carjacking in which the victim was hit with her own car, to robbery with a machete, to attacking someone with a machete for the hell of it, or doing the same with a BB gun, we've seen rather a lot of nastiness of late - and, more worrisome, seemingly random nastiness.

News roundup, 28 Oct 2024

- Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko has warned Russia that any attempt to annex his country would lead to war. Belarus has until now been seen as a pretty reliable ally for Russia, but there are suspicions that the annexation of the country is part of Putin's long-term plans. Others scoff at this; some in this Reddit thread think this is just a show for the West, or else Lukashenko trying to keep a door to the West open in case Russia's ambitions in Ukraine are thwarted.

- Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, speaking as the warmup act for a Donald Trump rally in Georgia, gave a rather graphic metaphor for what he hopes a second Trump presidency would mean for America:

“If you allow your hormone-addled 15-year-old daughter to slam the door and give you the finger, you’re going to get more of it,” Carlson said. “There has to be a point at which Dad comes home.” At this point the crowd erupted into raucous cheers.

“Dad comes home and he’s pissed,” Carlson continues. “He’s not vengeful, he loves his children. Disobedient as they may be, he loves them … And when Dad gets home, you know what he says? You’ve been a bad girl. You’ve been a bad little girl and you’re getting a vigorous spanking right now. And no, it’s not going to hurt me more than it hurts you. No, it’s not. I’m not going to lie. It’s going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me. And you earned this. You’re getting a vigorous spanking because you’ve been a bad girl, and it has to be this way.”

Clearly this struck a chord with the crowd. Later, when Trump came on stage, they screamed “Daddy’s home” and “Daddy Don”. Sigmund Freud almost rose from his grave.

It's becoming more and more apparent that close to half of the American population is, to put it kindly, not of sound mind.

- The Washington Post has announced that they will not endorse any candidate for president this year, for the first time since 1988. Reportedly the editorial page editor, David Shipley, had approved an endorsement of Harris, but it was shot down by "management" (presumably meaning Jeff Bezos). The move sparked resignations from the board; the same thing also happened at the Los Angeles Times. This has led to speculation that management is scared of what Trump might do to them if he does win the presidency - or at least insufficiently scared of what he might do to other people.

- New Flyer Industries is significantly expanding their production of electric transit buses. This will enable some buses to be completely assembled at the Winnipeg plant; until now only the shells of the buses have been manufactured here, while the mechanicals have been added at a plant in Alabama. One hopes that some of these buses can be put to use on our own streets...

- A final seat count for BC's election last week is still pending as some 22,000 absentee ballots await counting.

- The robotics industry is now producing farm equipment that can harvest crops autonomously. This will help deal with the shortage of farm labour; it will probably also hasten the depopulation (and resulting decline in political influence) of rural areas.

- Chris Alexander, who served as Minister of Citizenship and Immigration under Stephen Harper, has accused Postmedia reporter David Pugliese of having been a Russian asset since the 1980s. The allegation was made during Alexander's testimony before the House of Commons standing committee on public safety and national security on Thursday.

- A private member's bill introduced to the Ontario legislature by Liberal MPP Karen McCrimmon aimed to facilitate the conversion of vacant office space into housing. Unfortunately the government has shot the bill down; whether this is just the knee-jerk reaction of a government that doesn't want anything done that they can't take credit for, or whether they have a deeper opposition to the idea, is not clear. I could see Doug Ford not relishing an expansion of housing in the inner city, though, as such housing tends to be occupied by people less inclined to vote for his party. Not to mention, a disproportionate amount of Ford's base comes from people who work jobs that can't be done remotely, and some of those people are downright resentful of people who are able to do so.

News roundup, 24 Oct 2024

- Justin Trudeau is refusing to step down as Liberal leader, despite the demands from a growing number of MPs that he do so. Some of the rebel MPs expressed concern with how quickly he dismissed the suggestion; none of this is going to help salvage the party's chances in the next election, or even with rebuilding afterwards.

- In southwestern England, recurring flooding is being addressed by buying out farmers at around £5,000 an acre and restoring the saltmarsh habitat that existed previously. Not surprisingly, this has its detractors, but more of this sort of thing is going to be necessary, since the problem isn't going away any time soon.

- The driver who hit cyclist Rob Jenner in June, then left the scene, has pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing death and leaving the scene of the accident. He was going 159 km/h in a 50 zone. In tangentially related news, police have been cracking down on "stunt driving" to an extent, although it's an uphill battle with these people.

- Winnipeg police had to shoot a dog on Tuesday afternoon after it attacked four people, causing serious injuries to one of them.

- Many polls significantly underestimated Donald Trump's support in the 2020 election. The reasons for this are not entirely clear; one school of thought holds that low information voters are less likely to answer polls, and more likely to vote for the likes of Trump if they do vote. Notably, pollsters did better in the 2022 midterms (less engaged voters are more likely to sit the election out if the presidency isn't up for grabs). Others suggest that the 2020 election was heavily influenced by the pandemic and other factors. Pollsters are changing their methodologies in an attempt to correct for factors like these; the effectiveness of these measures remains to be seen.

- A Cambridge University study has found a significant positive correlation between the number of Airbnb locations in a neighbourhood and its crime rate.

- Post-secondary institutions in red states are having a harder time attracting students from out of state as non-crazy students balk at having to live in such a place.

News roundup, 23 Oct 2024

- Toronto's University Health Network, which includes Toronto General Hospital, Toronto Western Hospital, Toronto Rehab, and Princess Margaret Cancer Centre among others, is reintroducing mask mandates at their facilities. Given the potential for stirring up populist rage, I have to assume that this decision was not made lightly.

- 24 Liberal MPs have signed a document calling on Justin Trudeau to step down as party leader. The document gives a deadline of October 28, but does not specify any specific consequences if he doesn't quit. Nor could it; the party has no mechanism to force him out.

- The Manitoba government is holding off on issuing new licenses for urban convenience stores and gas stations to sell cannabis. The Domo chain of gas stations is disappointed, as they were hoping to start selling the stuff; the vice-president of the Retail Cannabis Council of Manitoba is applauding the move, however. Certainly there's no shortage of places to buy dope right now. There are, however, security issues with some of the stores; while the product is generally stored in a secure location like a safe, that doesn't stop would-be thieves from doing a lot of damage to the stores before they give up. I'd have expected that actual armed robbery would be a bigger risk, especially as those stores likely do a lot more business in cash than most retailers.

- Ontario premier Doug Ford insists on pushing ahead with his plan to force cities to remove bike lanes on major streets. In actual fact bike lanes are more of a solution to congestion than a problem, but Ford doesn't know that or, more likely, doesn't care - populists like him aren't interested in actual solutions so much as being seen by their base to be doing something. And the suburban sheeple who flock to Ford don't want to be confused by the facts.

- I've often been critical of Winnipeg city councillor Brian Mayes here due to his efforts to please NIMBYs in regards to density issues, but I do have to give him credit for at least raising the issue of natural gas heating. He's introducing a motion at council's Climate Action and Resilience Committee calling for city staff to produce a report on methods of phasing out natural gas in new and existing city buildings.

- After all regular ballots were counted, the NDP had a lead of only 20 votes in Juan de Fuca-Malahat. Mail-ins have yet to be counted; if the difference is less than 100 votes after that, a recount is automatic.

- Victoria's city council is asking the provincial government to take action to support the city's small businesses. One of the things they are requesting is for the province to "consider impacts to downtown Victoria when making decisions about remote and hybrid work arrangements". Interestingly, someone in this Reddit thread alleges that the city council did not make similar directives to their own staff; presumably that's because negotiations with city workers are their problem, while negotiations with provincial workers aren't.

- A 14 year old from Orlando, Florida whose best friend was an AI chatbot shot himself with his stepfather's handgun. His mother blames the chatbot for his death (rather than, say, blaming her husband for leaving a .45 where a troubled teen could find it).

News roundup, 22 Oct 2024

- Control over BC's legislature remains up in the air due to several recounts, but one thing that's clear - the knuckle-dragging loogans did way better than they ought to, and not just in the purely rural ares either. Several Conservatives singles out by the NDP for their extreme views won their seats, including Brent Chapman (the guy who made overtly racist social media posts about Palestinians and suggested that several mass shootings were hoaxes), Jordan Kealy (who promoted the "chemtrails" conspiracy theory), and Jody Toor (who claimed to be a "medical doctor" on the basis of a degree from a crackpot online institution in Hawaii). On a more positive note, Chris Sankey (who claimed that vaccines cause AIDS and claimed that the Jan 6 riot was a hoax) appears to have been defeated, and Bryan Breguet (who questioned the existence of anti-indigenous racism) is still awaiting the results of a recount. Nonetheless, it all brings to mind the quote sometimes attributed (questionably) to Winston Churchill, that "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter".

- Related to that Churchill "quote", Liberal MP Sean Casey, who has joined the growing ranks of those calling for Justin Trudeau's resignation as party leader, said something interesting on the subject:

Voting is an emotional exercise. It’s not based on logic. If it was based on logic and rational thinking, we’d be 20 points up, not down. But there’s been baggage accumulated. People have tuned him out.

There's definitely something to that; while "20 points up" is overstating the case given the rather mediocre performance of the government, decent people voting on the basis of reason and logic would not be going for the Poilievre Conservatives.

- In the US, the ever-gullible masses are in thrall to absurd claims about the recent hurricanes, from claims about Biden and Harris' supposed indifference to the plight of victims to the idea that some nebulous "they" (presumably including Democrats, Jews, etc) are controlling the hurricanes. Of course stuff like this is not without consequence - one man has been arrested for threats against FEMA workers (he is of course unrepentant, like most such people).

- Switzerland, despite their longstanding neutral stance, has signed onto the European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI), which seeks to build a unified air and missile defence system across the European subcontinent. They reserve the right, however, to withdraw their participation in the event of an actual war.

- A baseless story being circulated that alleges that Tim Walz sexually assaulted one of his students seems to be getting a boost from Storm-1516, a network affiliated with the so-called Internet Research Agency and believed to operate out of St. Petersburg. They've previously circulated stuff about Kamala Harris as well; stuff like this makes claims that Russia's leaders are becoming more leery of Trump seem like wishful thinking.

- Winnipeg councillor Brian Mayes, who never met a NIMBY he didn't like, continues to cozy up to those people; he's now demanding a map of every location in the city that would be impacted by the proposed "as of right" zoning (which would enable buildings of up to 4 storeys to be constructed without a hearing as long as they're within 800 metres of a transit route).

News roundup, 21 Oct 2024

- BC's election is too close to call, with the results in several constituencies riding on mail-in and out-of-district ballots that haven't been counted yet. Mail-ins aren't expected to be counted until the 26th; it's a safe bet that if the Conservatives end up losing they'll use the delayed results as "evidence" that the election was rigged. And it's more than a bit disturbing that over 40% of the electorate (probably much higher in rural areas) voted for a far-right extremist party. And in the last week of the campaign, someone cut Nathan Cullen's image out of a lawn sign and suspended it from a makeshift gallows; sadly that seems to be fairly reflective of the way that constituency is going, given that Cullen was defeated on Saturday.

- Winnipeg mayor Scott Gillingham is proposing a new emergency service that would specialize in mental health issues. Given that the police have a rather spotty track record in that area, plus the fact that even the sight of a police uniform can be a problem for some people in crisis, this may be a good idea.

- The impact of climate change on heavily populated areas such as the Middle East and south Asia are hard to overstate. Many places are running out of water as rainfalls decline; some people will die in place but many more will become what might be called "environmentally displaced people". Some use the term "climate refugee", but they don't fit the current international definition of refugee, and the chances of the definition being updated and thus obligating signatories to the refugee convention to accept them are pretty slim. Incidentally, some historians believe that the so-called "Sea Peoples" linked to the Late Bronze Age collapse were environmentally displaced people. Think about that, then maybe read Christopher Priest's novel Fugue for a Darkening Island...

- The US Department of the Interior has approved a 2 gigawatt geothermal energy site in Utah. The operation is expected to generate enough electricity to supply over 2 million homes.

- A survey of employers found that many of them are having a hard time implementing a return-to-office policy. 75% say that they are having problems getting workers to comply with RTO mandates. Interestingly, only about half say that they "definitely" or "probably" will be stricter in their enforcement of such mandates.

- Several Republican AGs in the US are suing the FDA for approving online sales of the abortion drug mifepristone (also known as RU-486). One of the harms they're claiming is rather interesting - there has been a drop in births among kids aged 15 to 19, which has the potential to slow population growth and thus potentially result in states like Missouri "losing a seat in Congress or qualifying for less federal funding". Yeah, they said one of the quiet parts out loud.

- An RCMP officer in Burnaby has finally been forced out after having spent more than half of his career on paid leave for reasons the force seems reluctant to discuss in any detail.

News roundup, 18 Oct 2024

- The Manitoba government has hired former federal cabinet minister Lloyd Axworthy to study the feasibility of relocating the rail yards that separate Winnipeg's city centre from the North End. The matter has been mooted for years, but perhaps the closure of the Arlington Bridge has added a sense of urgency to the matter. Axworthy was involved in the relocation of CN yards from the Forks in the 1980s while serving as transport minister; notably, though, that was when CN was still owned by the federal government.

- The Kinew government is also scrapping the previous government's plans to use a P3 model to build schools. Part of the concern is over the terms seen in previous P3 agreements in other provinces; because the private partners retained a stake in the schools, they put undue restrictions on the use of classrooms (including prohibiting teachers from putting art on classroom walls) - not to mention the fact that many such arrangements ended up costing considerably more than the traditional way of building schools once maintenance is factored in.

- Fort Whyte MLA Obby Khan and Churchill hotel owner Wally Daudrich will be competing for the Manitoba PC leadership - assuming that Daudrich passes the party's vetting (Khan has already been approved).

- The Green Party's candidate in Steinbach, who withdrew from the race shortly before last year's election, was found to have forged two signatures on her nomination papers.

- An organization calling itself "West Coast Proud" has spent tens of thousands of dollars on social media ads promoting the BC Conservatives and attacking the NDP. Turns out that the people behind it are Albertans trying to influence the outcome of another province's election.

- The BC Conservatives have finally released their platform on Tuesday, only days before the election (and after a record number of people had already voted in advance). Turns out that they plan to run a deficit of nearly $11 billion in their first year, higher than the NDP or the Greens. Their candidates also have a poor record for turning up at all candidates debates, and one of them has apparently been calling herself a medical doctor based on her doctorate in "integrative medicine" from an institution called "Quantum University" in Hawaii. I suspect the College of Physicians and Surgeons would like a word with her about that.

- Christopher Yoo, a 17-year-old chess grandmaster competing in the US Championship, has been expelled from the tournament following an incident in which, after being defeated by Fabiano Caruana, he crumpled up his scoresheet and stormed out of the tournament hall, allegedly assaulting a videographer in the process.

- A woman tore down what she believed to be Israeli flags at a restaurant in Montclair, New Jersey, while shouting "Free Palestine! This is genocide!" Thing is, the flags were actually Greek flags, not Israeli ones.

News roundup, 16 Oct 2024

- The federal government has expelled six Indian diplomats, accusing India of involvement in "widespread violence" in this country. The violence in question apparently includes homicides, such as the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey last year. India has responded in kind, ordering six Canadian diplomats to leave the country.

- BC Conservative Party candidate Brent Chapman is facing calls to withdraw from the race following revelations that he circulated bizarre conspiracy theories alleging that several mass shootings, including the Quebec City mosque shooting in 2017 as well as the Sandy Hook and Pulse Nightclub shootings in the US were hoaxes. He had also made some social media posts in which he called Palestinians "little inbred walking, talking, breathing time bombs". He has also alleged that the UN is somehow interfering in municipal politics. Happily, recent polling from Angus Reid as well as Research Co suggests that BC voters - or at least urban and suburban ones - may be coming to their senses.

- Hacktivists professing to be acting on behalf of Palestinians have claimed responsibility for a cyberattack on the Internet Archive. What makes the archive a legitimate target for such activism is not clear, though the activists seem to be claiming that the fact that the nonprofit is based in the US is reason enough. Seems like pretty flimsy grounds to me; I guess organizations that are actually harming Palestinians have better cybersecurity, though, and they went for the low hanging fruit instead.

- The IDF appears to be using Palestinians as human shields. Not the first time such accusations have been made, but when a paper as sympathetic to Israel as the New York Times reports on them, it's a sign that the evidence is pretty hard to dismiss.

- An American journalist, Jeremy Loffredo, was detained in Israel last week; while he has been released from custody he is barred from leaving the country. The Israelis accuse him of "endangering national security" and "aiding and sharing information with the enemy" due to his having reported on Iranian strikes in the country.

- An auto parts maker, Yapp USA Automotive Systems, is challenging the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board; unfortunately the case is to be decided by the Trumper-dominated US Supreme Court.

- A four-year-old child has died after falling from the 19th floor of a highrise in downtown Winnipeg.

- After a delay resulting from the recent hurricane, Europa Clipper was successfully launched from Cape Canaveral. The probe is expected to arrive at Europa in 2030, in search of evidence of life.

News roundup, 15 Oct 2024

- Three cargo ships were hit by Russian missiles while in Ukrainian ports last week, killing at least 10 people and leading to fears that cargo operators will avoid the country.

- The BC NDP and Conservative parties remain in a statistical dead heat in the last week of campaigning. The NDP may well hold on due to greater vote efficiency and recent publicity about the Conservatives' extremism, but even if they do it's rather disconcerting that it's even a serious contest.

- The Canadian Association of Professional Employees, which represents around 27,000 federal employees, is calling for an investigation by the parliamentary Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates into a federal mandate that orders public servants back into the office a minimum of 3 days per week. Another union, the Public Service Alliance of Canada, is challenging the mandate in court but this could take years to resolve due to the backlog in the courts; the parliamentary committee could potentially get quicker results.

- Following an incident last week in which a patient at St. Boniface Hospital brandished knives, some are calling for stronger security measures at hospitals. There is some discomfort about the idea of putting metal detectors at the entrances due to concern that it could make the hospital feel less safe for some, even as it makes it feel more safe for others. No statistics are given, though on whether the presence or absence of metal detectors would scare away more people, which would seem to be a pertinent piece of information. The article does note that Health Sciences Centre has been testing an "AI weapons detector" at the entrance to their ER; why AI is needed for this is not made clear, though if it somehow makes the detector less intrusive than a standard airport-style medical detector then it might have merit I suppose.

- The distribution of rapid COVID-19 tests in Manitoba is being discontinued, except for the most vulnerable people such as care home residents. I guess too much continued awareness of the disease is bad for business.

- Two middle-aged residents of Winnipeg's Lord Roberts neighbourhood have been charged with torturing and killing cats to make videos which were posted on the dark web. The suspects are known to police; disconcertingly, this appears to be unrelated to some other killings of cats that have occurred in Point Douglas recently.

- Despite recent reports that the closures of several 7-Eleven stores in Winnipeg were due to crime, it appears that this is actually part of a company-wide shakedown. Some folks in this Reddit thread think that the plan is to move towards making the chain more upscale (as it apparently already is in Japan) and that they're closing locations that they don't consider suitable for this. It's also pointed out there that the red herring of crime has been tossed out in similar situations before, such as the closure of the Osborne Village Starbucks location (stories about this made reference to crime but left out the fact that Starbucks has been trying to eliminate locations without drive-thru service) and similar stories about various Target locations in the US (many of which were apparently in over-saturated markets). In any case, Canadian convenience store chain Couche-Tard has been trying to buy 7-Eleven for some time, but getting rebuffed, and might well leap at the opportunity to take over the closed locations as a consolation prize.

- Alexandre Brassard, a biologist at St. Boniface University, was alarmed to find that a new book, entitled Mushrooms of Manitoba, contains multiple errors and makes no mention of several deadly poisonous species. The book appears to have been written with AI; Amazon delisted the book after CBC contacted them about the matter.

News roundup, 11 Oct 2024

- The captain of a Turkish Airlines A350 flying from Seattle to Istanbul died mid-flight. The aircraft was successfully landed in New York by the first officer and a relief pilot.

- Despite the ravages of hurricanes like Milton, there is skepticism in some circles about the idea that the rich will abandon the state. Contrary to the view that the rich will take advantage of their superior mobility and leave while the poor will have no choice but to stay, the argument is that the rich are the only ones who will be able to afford to stay as insurance becomes more expensive. Of course, as some here point out, there are limits to this, not least the fact that if the poor are forced out, there'll be no one to serve the rich their iced coffees.

- The Manitoba government seems to be making substantial progress in improving access to physicians. There has been a net gain of 133 doctors between April and August of this year; there's still a long way to go, though, as nearly three times that number are still needed in order to reach the national per capita average.

- Cleanup is finally underway at the location where three businesses were destroyed by fire early last year. Some of the delay resulted when the owner of one of the buildings tried to challenge findings by the government that there was asbestos at the location, which requires additional expenditures in order to clean up safely. In related news, a report presented to the city on the policy of billing owners of vacant properties for the cost of firefighting claims the measure may have done more harm than good; the city has been paid less that $79,000 out of $1.15 million billed to property owners last year and has apparently been forced to dedicate resources to deal with appeals by the owners. Given how early it is in the game, it seems premature to declare the policy a failure, though - and as numerous folks in this Reddit thread are arguing, maybe the city should just move along with seizing properties from delinquent owners and use the properties to build affordable housing.

- BC Conservative Party leader John Rustad recently claimed that foot traffic in downtown Victoria has declined 60% in the last couple of years. Thing is, like a lot of things rightwing politicians say, it simply isn't true. There was a slight increase from 2022 to 2023; data from this year is not yet available. As regards Rustad's motives for making up such nonsense, it may be partly just an attempt to create a general impression of failure on the part of the incumbent NDP government. It may also be a way of signalling to people who are resentful of WFH that he's their guy. Or maybe, as some folks on Reddit think, as a rightwing politician he just lies by default. Who knows?

- An in-service held by the Winnipeg School Division at the Canada Life Centre on Wednesday created a stir when, during a speech by an American educator about matters related to indigenous education, the slogan "Resistance to colonialism is not terrorism" was displayed on a screen. This immediately raised the hackles of some members of the Jewish community, and the school division promptly apologized for this. You could argue that the slogan is over the top, but it's kind of telling that members of that community felt singled out by it notwithstanding that it makes no mention of Israel or Palestine and was displayed during a speech related to actual consequences of colonialism.

- A Nebraska woman is attempting to sue every gay person on the planet for breaking "religious and moral laws". She claims to be acting as the "ambassador" for the true plaintiffs, "God and His Son, Jesus Christ". That may be a bit much even for Nebraska; a statement from the court indicated that no summons will be issued to the defendants.