- Donald Trump is appealing the decision of the state Supreme Court in Colorado regarding his eligibility to appear on the ballot to the federal Supreme court. In Maine, a Republican member of the legislature has introduced a resolution to impeach the state's Secretary of State for her role in keeping Trump off the ballot. And one of Trump's lawyers, Christina Bobb, essentially said sure, maybe he is guilty of insurrection, but that if he is he shouldn't be kept off the ballot for that.
- The legislatures of several American states were evacuated today due to bomb threats. The motive is unclear; targetted states include the hard-red Mississippi and Montana as well as purpler states like Michigan.
- Most municipalities, at least in North America, get much of their revenue from property taxes. The thing is, the taxes are levied on the value both of the land itself and any structures built thereon, with the result that speculators who sit on vacant lots or condemned houses don't pay much in the way of tax. But what if the taxes were levied solely on the value of the land itself (but at a higher rate so as to give similar amounts of revenue to what we have now)? That would mean that building and maintaining housing would not be penalized in the way that it is now (if you build on a vacant lot, or fix up the building on it, your taxes go up). This idea is sometimes called "Georgism", after Henry George, an early proponent, and is getting a serious look today, by some on the left as well as by some libertarian types. Seems worthy of consideration, anyway.
- Despite the legal setback experienced by the City of Berkeley when they attempted to ban natural gas appliances in new construction, Seattle is moving ahead with their own legislation, which might be more legally defensible since it doesn't explicitly ban these appliances, it just requires that all buildings over 20,000ft2 be net zero by 2050, and that clearly won't be possible with natural gas. In fact in a way this goes further than Berkeley's attempt, since it applies to existing buildings as well as new ones.
- The Dash 8 of the Japanese Coast Guard that strayed into the path of that JAL A350 the other day apparently had not been cleared for takeoff, which would seem to suggest that it shouldn't have been on the runway at that time. Its captain, the only survivor of the six people on board, seems to have thought he had been cleared to enter the runway, but I'd say he's got some 'splaining to do. Kudos to the JAL crew for successfully evacuating a widebody without loss of life to their own passengers and crew, though.
- Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe used to be really big on the rule of law, but not so much now that he plans to defy federal law on carbon pricing.
- A BC lawyer who was using a lot of sovereign citizen-type pseudolegal nonsense to harass a neighbour has been suspended by the province's law society.
- A judge in the Clark County District Court in Las Vegas was attacked by a man she was about to sentence for "aggravated battery with substantial bodily harm" after he realized that his request to get off with probation wasn't going to be granted. I doubt this will help his efforts to avoid prison.
- A deaf man in Colorado was arrested and roughed up for failure to comply with police commands.
- Someone cut down Kenora's public Christmas tree with a chainsaw. The motive is unknown.
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