- The World Health Organization is warning that the assault on Rafah in Gaza could shut down the city's last functioning hospital, potentially leading to a lot more deaths. The Israelis seem not to care.
- A student is suing the Ontario College of Art & Design University for failing to protect her from antisemitism on campus. The student, Samantha Kline, says that she has been subject to death threats. One thing to note is that she explicitly identifies as a Zionist; nonetheless, it's hard to justify that kind of behaviour.
- Speaking of Zionism, there's a rather interesting post in a Reddit thread where someone breaks it down quite nicely:
1. For some people, ‘Zionism’ means “Israel has a right to exist”.
2. For others, ‘Zionism’ means “Israel has a right to expand to encompass whichever territories in the middle-east it desires, regardless of who is living there currently.”
And,
3. For some people ‘Anti-Zionism’ means “Israel doesn’t have a right to expand indefinitely, and should negotiate a permanent two-state solution, ensuring the human rights of Palestinians in the process.”
4. And then, some people believe ‘Anti-Zionism’ means “I want to eliminate the state of Israel and its people”.
So it's quite possible to be a Zionist by definition 1, but an anti-Zionist by definition 3. It's stuff like this that makes communicating across the divide even more difficult than it already is; perhaps it's best to be cautious about even using that word in the course of such discussions.
- Harassment of MPs, and actual threats towards them, has increased enormously in the last 5 years. The sergeant at arms at Parliament says in 2019, there were a total of eight files opened by his office regarding threats against MPs; in 2023 there were 530. I think it's a safe bet that the pandemic has been the main factor; tough and unpopular decisions had to be made, and people became isolated and filled the void with social media, making them more susceptible to manipulative conspiracy theories. Unfortunately I don't see things improving much anytime soon, especially since a lot more tough decisions will be needed to deal with what's coming in the next few decades.
- The Kinew government is planning to tighten up rent controls. They are also providing a ten year exemption for owners of nonresidential buildings who convert them to residential, so as to provide an incentive to do this.
- In Ontario, the government is paying $225 million to the Beer Store consortium so as to be able to end their quasi-monopoly 16 months before the expiration of a 10-year agreement signed by the previous government, and thus get that beer into convenience stores. Some have wondered why they didn't just wait for the agreement to expire; Robyn Urback suggests that they plan to call an early election, and are hoping that easier access to beer will help their chances.
- The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has approved the release of two moth species for the biological control of invasive plants. The targets are reeds in the genus Phragmites, which were introduced from Eurasia in the 19th century and have been taking over wetlands across North America. Part of the problem with these plants is that, as with some other plants like Garlic Mustard, they release chemicals into the environment that keep seedlings of other plant species from successfully developing. The larvae of the moths are very specific in their foodplant requirements and thus hopefully will not become a problem themselves.
- A Winnipeg convenience store was destroyed by fire on Friday night. No cause has been announced yet, however one witness reported that the fire seemed to start at the front of the building. Certainly there have been a number of arson attacks on convenience stores in the city in recent years; some folks on Reddit are speculating that turf wars in the contraband cigarette business are to blame.
- The City of Toronto has renamed a football stadium after the late former mayor (and brother of the current Ontario premier) Rob Ford. Perhaps, in the tradition of giving stadiums nicknames, this one could be called "The Pipe".
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