News roundup, 28 June 2024

- Many who watched the first Biden-Trump debate say that it was a disaster for Biden, notwithstanding the torrent of lies and deflection that poured from Trump's mouth. Biden apparently froze up for 14 seconds early on in the debate; some Democrats think he should be pressured into withdrawing from the race, although his performance apparently improved later in the debate. As to who could replace him on the ballot, several names have been proposed.

- The US House of Representatives has passed an amendment to prohibit the State Department from citing statistics from the Gaza Health Ministry in discussing the conflict there. 62 Democrats voted with the Republicans to pass the amendment.

- Catherine McKenna, who served as environment minister in Trudeau's cabinet until 2021, has joined the ranks of those calling for him to step down before the next election.

- The head of the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg, Dr. Guillaume Poliquin, is stepping down. He says this is to take on a position at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba. His tenure was marked by the espionage scandal at the lab, though he did not mention that in citing his reason for resigning.

- The shutdown of the Ontario Science Centre is being justified by the Ford government on safety grounds, but the architecture firm that built the facility says that the issues with the centre were identified years ago and not corrected. In any case, they say, even now the facility could be saved if the political will was there - but it's a safe bet that educating the public about science is not one of Ford's priorities.

- A looming strike by WestJet mechanics has been averted, as the federal government has imposed binding arbitration.

- A proposed bylaw in Kitchener, Ontario would require Airbnb hosts to be licensed and insured. Of course, they're up in arms, saying it will ruin their business - but any legitimate business should be licensed and insured. And if you can't afford it, you shouldn't be in business. Moreover, if some of these people are put out of business they might have to make their houses or apartments available for people to actually live in rather than play in.

- A former neurology resident in Ottawa who presented himself as a fully licensed doctor and provided medical services to convoy protesters in 2022 has been suspended by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario.

- The residents of the house that exploded in Transcona are safe; they were apparently not home at the time. The cause of the explosion is still under investigation.

News roundup, 27 June 2024

- The  American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) spent nearly $15 million to ensure that New York Democratic member of Congress Jamaal Bowman was defeated in a primary. They succeeded.

- Denmark may become the first country in the world to apply carbon taxes to livestock emissions, beginning in 2030. By way of compensation, farmers will be able to an income tax deduction and will be able to access funding to change their operations to reduce their emissions. New Zealand had similar plans, but the new rightwing government there scrapped them earlier this month.

- Climate activists in Germany are taking the government to court for failing to take adequate action on climate change, after one of the coalition partners, the neoliberal Free Democrats, managed to get proposed legislation watered down.

- A wax sculpture of Abraham Lincoln in Washington, DC has partially melted due to the ongoing heatwave. Given that many of the people who fiercely resist climate action also would probably like to undo Lincoln's signature achievement, there's something symbolic about this.

- North Carolina's Democratic governor Roy Cooper has vetoed a bill that would outlaw wearing a mask in public in most cases; unfortunately the Republicans will probably be able to override the veto. The ostensible justification for the bill is as an anti-crime measure; Cooper says he vetoed the bill partly because of insufficient protection for medical users, but mostly because of a campaign finance provision tacked onto it. More alarming is that relatively liberal New York State is considering similar legislation, largely because of allegations that over-zealous pro-Palestinian protesters are using them. Even without actual bans, many people across the US report harassment and discrimination over mask wearing.

- The first ever sample return mission from the far side of the Moon has been successful as China's Chang’e 6 spacecraft landed successfully in Inner Mongolia.

- Prosecutors have recommended against charging the bus driver in last year's disastrous crash near Carberry, Manitoba that killed 17 people. Apparently the driver suffered a severe brain injury in the accident and is likely never going to be in any condition to be interviewed by police. I guess the survivors, and families of the dead, can take comfort in the fact that he's already effectively serving a life sentence.

- A house in Transcona was destroyed in an explosion yesterday that also severely damaged neighbouring homes; however nobody appears to have been injured; neighbours believe the sole resident of the house was not home at the time.

News roundup, 26 June 2024

- One thing that we see a lot of these days are analogies with the world wars of the last century. In particular, with the Russia-Ukraine conflict, some of the more hawkish folks out there are talking a lot about the leadup to WWII, and the popular Coles Notes interpretation of the Munich Conference of 1938. But the popular interpretation of the conference isn't necessarily correct, and as I've said a number of times before, even if it were it is not correct to apply the rules of the pre-nuclear age to the present day. It seems that Gwynne Dyer agrees with me on this matter.

- Some hopeful signs on the climate front - the production of electricity from geothermal energy got a big boost from a utility in California, Southern California Edison. The company is backing the construction of a 400 megawatt plant by Fervo Energy, which will produce enough power for around 400,000 homes. Besides producing power as consistently as coal, natural gas, or nuclear power, geothermal has an additional advantage in that many of the skills useful for drilling oil and gas wells are readily transferable to drilling wells for geothermal plants - making it a bit easier to contain the blind populist rage that results when one talks about cutting fossil fuel production. Also potentially good news - a biotech firm has received a significant investment to build a bioreactor for the production of synthetic meat, giving hope that economies of scale will kick in and eventually undercut conventional meat. Unfortunately these improvements probably come far too late for a lot of people, even in rich countries like the US - but hopefully not too late for a lot of other people.

- A former Liberal MP, Frank Baylis, says he will consider a run for the party leadership if Trudeau steps down. One unnamed MP has expressed the opinion that Baylis may not have the necessary experience, but maybe that's missing the point. While ousting Trudeau probably wouldn't get the party returned to office next year, it's possible that ditching Trudeau now might steal a little bit of the Tories' thunder, since Trudeau's persona is probably one of the Cons' biggest fundraising assets. Then, following a less devastating election than is currently expected, he could graciously step aside and make way for the likes of Mark Carney to take over the party and eventually bring it back to power.

- The City of Winnipeg is working on setting up a residential composting program as found in some other cities. Unfortunately the program isn't expected to be up and running until 2030; the city says that the time is needed to construct an industrial scale facility to process the material; they intend to find a private contractor to build and operate the facility. Apparently, though, other cities, such as Regina, make do with a big concrete pad, which could presumably be constructed a lot sooner than that. To be fair, though, Winnipeg is over 3 times as big as Regina and maybe that wouldn't be feasible with a larger amount of waste, especially if it were constructed at Brady or somewhere else close to residential neighbourhoods who might not appreciate the smell of an open-air facility.

- The woman who ran a crack ring in my neighbourhood and famously branded her crack by dying it pink has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.

News roundup, 25 June 2024

- The Conservatives have captured the former Liberal stronghold of Toronto-St. Paul's in yesterday's byelection. This is likely to increase internal pressure on Justin Trudeau, but one recent poll has suggested that even getting rid of him may not help their electoral chances very much.

- American journalist Rachel Maddow fears that Donald Trump is not bluffing when he talks about building camps capable of holding millions of people and about "rooting out" the "enemy from within". Someone in this Reddit thread points out that Trump has already talked about putting the homeless and mentally ill into camps, and that fascists usually start with people who have very few allies before going after others.

- Julian Assange has made a plea deal, in which he has agreed to plead guilty to a single charge of violating the American espionage law and be sentenced to time served. He is expected to return to his native Australia afterwards.

- A 42 year old woman in Euless, Texas has been arrested after allegedly attempting to drown a 3 year old Palestinian child in an apartment complex pool following a racially charged confrontation with the girl's mother. She has been charged with attempted capital murder, injury to a child, and public intoxication.

- A fraudster who pleaded guilty to forging Norval Morrisseau paintings has said that a painting held by the Winnipeg Art Gallery is among the forgeries. The gallery has placed the painting into storage while they decide what do to next.

- An OPP officer who fatally ran over a man in Midland while speeding on a run to get coffee for another officer at a crime scene in 2020 has been found to have committed "discreditable conduct", however the OPP has declared that the misconduct was "not serious" and can be handled internally by the force. Somehow I doubt a courier, Amazon driver, or the like would get the same consideration.

- More than 1,100 people have died from the heat in the course of the haj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.

News roundup, 24 June 2024

- An outbreak of violence in the Russian republic of Dagestan has killed 15 police officers and several civilians. An affiliate of ISIS has claimed responsibility, but that's not stopping the Russians from making oblique references to Ukraine. No question this is good news for Ukraine of course; if anything is going to stop the Russians it's internal divisions.

- Research on geoengineering continues. This is probably necessary, unless we manage to convince millions of people to fly a lot less and billions to eat a lot less meat, but the potential for unintended consequences is great. One recent study concluded that seeding clouds with sea salt could enable them to reflect more sunlight away from the Earth. The problem is, their modelling concluded that while this could be useful to cool the western US, it could have the side effect of causing heat waves elsewhere (Europe in this case) as well as disrupting rainfall in the US as well as in far-flung places such as the Sahel region of Africa. Now imagine a geoengineering project by one country that negatively impacts a hostile country, or is perceived as having done so. Best hope the countries involved aren't nuclear powers.

- A scientist working for the federal government is alleging that the federal government, along with the provincial government of New Brunswick, has shut down an investigation into the cluster of cases of a mysterious degenerative brain disease. This follows similar allegations from another scientist; one has to conclude that the governments are trying to protect someone (one is inclined to suspect that it's a company whose name begins with I).

- An investigation has concluded that Winnipeg councillor Markus Chambers (St. Norbert - Seine River) violated conflict of interest rules by failing to recuse himself on a motion concerning changes to a residential development recommended by city planners. Chambers, who also serves as deputy mayor and chair of the police board, had also failed to reveal his personal connection to one of the owners of the property involved.

- Naheed Nenshi has won the Alberta NDP leadership in a landslide, receiving over 86% of the vote.

- A byelection in the federal riding of Toronto-St. Paul's is being held today. The riding has been a Liberal stronghold for decades, so if they lose, or even if they win by a narrow margin, the pressure on Justin Trudeau to step down is expected to increase. That would probably be the best outcome actually; a new leader probably won't be enough to save the Liberals, but it might offer some slim hope for a hung parliament rather than a Conservative majority next year.

- Calgary has been having serious problems with its water distribution network for over two weeks. Many are pointing out that this problem is not limited to Calgary; I would add that it's not limited to water distribution either. The approach most North American cities have taken to growth, with low-density suburbs, means that there isn't enough tax base to maintain the infrastructure needed to support said suburbs. Curiously, though, the CBC article avoids using words like "sprawl" and "density", but that's the real issue here and elsewhere.

News roundup, 21 June 2024

- Chris Skidmore, who served as the UK's energy minister under Theresa May, has vowed to vote Labour for the first time in his life in protest against the current Tory government turning climate into a "culture war" issue.

- Many Liberal MPs think it's time for Justin Trudeau to move on if there's to be any chance in salvaging the party's chances for the election. One unnamed MP said that "if we saw Justin Trudeau jump into a river to save two children being chased by a crocodile, people would say it was his fault", and like it or not, that is probably the case.

- A bill recently passed by Parliament, and now awaiting royal assent, will require companies who make claims about their environmental policies in advertising to provide evidence to back up their claims. Seems reasonable to most, but the Alberta government is up in arms about this; presumably they fear that the oil industry will collapse if they aren't allowed to lie to the public about what they're doing. An oilsands alliance has already removed all content from their website in anticipation of the bill becoming law.

- A search of the Prairie Green Landfill for at least two of Jeremy Skibicki's victims will commence in the fall, once a "targeted zone" where the remains are most likely buried can be identified.

- A man is suing Loblaws and the City of Winnipeg after an incident in 2022 in which he says that two police officers serving as security at the Superstore on Gateway Road made racially offensive comments, apparently under the impression that he was indigenous (he isn't) and then roughed him up when he tried to take photos.

- A strip club in Guelph, which was built in 1891, has been granted a heritage designation.

- Longtime Winnipeg broadcaster Larry Updike has died.

News roundup, 20 June 2024

- Three Manitoba credit unions (Assiniboine, Westoba, and Caisse Financial Group) have agreed to a merger which will take effect in the new year; the new institution will be called Assiniboine Credit Union / Caisse Assiniboine and will be the province's largest.

- Researchers have confirmed that the storm system that hit western Manitoba last week spawned five tornadoes; fortunately nobody was hurt and damage was minor.

- Manitoba Conservatives have been making themselves scarce since their defeat in the Tuxedo byelection. They now only hold two seats inside Winnipeg (really 1 ½ since the Roblin constituency includes the RM of Headingley). On the other hand, their grip on rural southern Manitoba is stronger now than it was 20 years ago; they now hold constituencies like Interlake-Gimli (formerly an NDP stronghold) and Swan River (formerly a swing constituency).

- At the federal level, a byelection in the Toronto riding of Toronto-St Paul's is a much bigger fight for the Liberals than expected. The Liberals have held the seat for over 30 years, and won by more than 20 points in the last election, but the Conservatives are surging even there. Dissatisfaction among the Jewish community with the government's failure to completely, unquestioningly support Israel is being cited as a reason.

- The federal government has announced a ban on open-net salmon farming in BC; this is a good move but one has to wonder why they waited so long to do it. A smarter move would have been to ban it earlier in their mandate; as things stand, the Conservatives, who are almost certain to take power next year, will likely reinstate open-net farming long before any impact on wild salmon populations can be assessed.

- Some UK Conservatives are being investigated for placing bets on the election date shortly before Rishi Sunak called it.

- A strike has been averted at WestJet after mechanics agreed to return to the bargaining table.

- Russia's scorched-earth approach in eastern Ukraine is being interpreted by some as an attempt to make sure that there's nothing worth continuing to defend in the area.

News roundup, 19 June 2024

- The NDP's Carla Compton won the Tuxedo byelection by 602 votes. This would have been unimaginable a year ago, and shows just how unpopular the Conservatives are in the city.

- Winnipeg's overall crime rate actually decreased in 2023 compared to previous years, however the rate of violent crime as well as hate crimes have increased significantly.

- Federal health minister Mark Holland accuses the Conservatives of "bullying" dental associations, alleging that they are calling these associations and yelling at them. Holland believes the Tories are trying to keep dentists from signing onto the federal dental program, and thus sabotage the program.

- The benefits of Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act disproportionately go to Republican areas. The reason is pretty straightforward - things like solar and wind farms require a lot of land, and thus generally go to rural areas. This has led to hopes that the Republicans won't kill all these initiatives; that remains to be seen.

- The Winnipeg neighbourhood of Wolseley has long had a reputation for being lefty, greeny types, but perhaps what they really are is NIMBY types, given the hostile reaction from many residents to an increase in the number of buses going through parts of the neighbourhood.

- While some shark species are in decline, the Great White Shark appears to be doing well in the Atlantic - to the point where warning signs are being considered for Nova Scotia beaches similar to those already seen in parts of New England.

- A Hamilton man walked into a mosque and yelled slurs at a Grade 3 gym class while tearing up a copy of the Quran. He has been charged with criminal harassment.

News roundup, 18 June 2024

- A Japanese company has developed what they call an "emotion cancelling" technology for call centres, which they say uses AI to alter caller's voices when they start screaming and swearing so as to make the experience less stressful for the agent. I'm sure some will feel uncomfortable about this, and I kinda, sorta get that. For a citizen/customer who has a genuine reason to be angry to call the line and have the agent have no understanding of how angry they are about the situation would doubtless make the kind of people who rail against "tone policing" uneasy. Myself, though, I think that if the agent is simply getting the information about the situation, they should be able to recognize the amount of attention the matter needs (whether they can do anything about it is another matter, of course). What might be more problematic is if the software were to start changing the actual words; while changing the caller's epithet to "fuzzy socksucker" would not have any negative effect, something like that could potentially be used to keep agents in the dark about things. Using AI to change the content of someone's speech in real time, though, would be far, far more difficult than using to change the tone, though, so I think we're safe from that for a while.

- Speaking of the use of AI for customer service, McDonald's is cancelling a pilot it was conducting with the use of AI chatbots at the drive-thru. They have not given a reason for the cancellation, and continue to say that "a voice-ordering solution for drive-thru will be part of our restaurants’ future"; my guess is that there were problems with accuracy.

- A bill before the California legislature would require big AI companies to do safety testing before releasing their products, or else be liable if their AI system leads to a "mass casualty event" or more than $500 million in damages. Sounds perfectly reasonable to everyone except the techbros, who are making apocalyptic predictions about how this will somehow destroy the entire tech industry in the state.

- The trial of six people, all medical professionals, who were charged with breaking windows at a JP Morgan bank during a climate protest has ended in a hung jury. There have been a number of acquittals and mistrials under similar circumstances in the UK over this issue; in one case a conviction was apparently only obtained after the judge threatened jurors with criminal prosecution if they should "try the case otherwise than on the basis of the evidence".

- Winnipeg's chief administrative officer Michael Jack has resigned. Nothing official has been said about the reason why, however unofficially some are pointing to an audit released last week which concluded that there was a "lack of processes" for evaluating staff performance.

- Not satisfied to send people back where they came from, Greece's coast guard has been accused of throwing migrants overboard.

News roundup, 17 June 2024

- A poll conducted by Probe Research on behalf of the Winnipeg Free Press indicates that the provincial NDP under Wab Kinew are actually more popular now than when they were first elected. Province-wide, the party is at 51% support, compared to the Tories at 38% and the Liberals at 6%. In Winnipeg specifically, the NDP is at 59%, and this encompasses suburban as well as inner city constituencies. Whether this is enough to push them over the top in Tuesday's byelection in Tuxedo remains to be seen, though they may get a boost from recent revelations that Tory candidate Lawrence Pinsky is being sued for stiffing a contractor who worked on his cottage.

- Benjamin Netanyahu has dissolved his war cabinet following the departure of Benny Gantz from his coalition.

- After the October 7 attacks, 73 students at Toronto Metropolitan University's Lincoln Alexander School of Law signed an open letter calling on the law school to drop its "neutral" position on the conflict. Many signed using pseudonyms, but 36 used their full names. While the petition acknowledged that the attack was a war crime, it also included some statements seen many as inflammatory, and some signatories were doxxed. More alarming, some law firms, in the course of their hiring process for the coming summer, have started asking applicants if they were among the pseudonymous signatories, and the provincial Office of the Attorney General went so far as to require applicants to sign an attestation that they did not sign, "either openly or anonymously". Some firms even mentioned internal pressure not to hire any TMU students, for fear that they might have been among the anonymous signers.

- A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 Max 8 came within 400 feet of crashing into the Pacific off the coast of Hawaii in April after the first officer, who was the pilot flying at the time, inadvertently pushed the control column forward too soon after a go-around. Nobody was injured in the incident. And in May, another aircraft of the same type, with the same airline, went into a "Dutch roll" in which yaw and roll are coupled and oscillate in a potentially dangerous manner. Nobody was hurt in this case either, however damage to one of the aircraft's power control units for the rudder was found after landing. Despite this close call, the airline waited 13 days before reporting the incident to the NTSB. Juan Browne (blancolirio) gives a clear and detailed explanation here.

- Ontario's Ministry of Finance quashed a pilot study by the Liquor Control Board of Ontario that would have introduced the controlled entrances similar to those in Manitoba that have been extremely successful in controlling theft. Requests for interviews with LCBO officials have not been granted, so the reason for the move is unclear. My suspicion is that the government fears that if the move is successful, it will interfere with the government's plans to put beer, wine and similar products in grocery and convenience stores - if all the theft that previously occurred at LCBO stores moves to those retailers, it might make alcohol sales less attractive to those retailers and undermine the government's privatization plans.

- A former Air Canada manager implicated in last year's multi-million dollar gold heist at Toronto's Pearson International Airport is preparing to return to Canada to face trial. Perhaps he's spent all the money.

- Donald Trump challenged Joe Biden to take a cognitive test, but confused the name of the White House physician who had administered his own tests during his presidency, giving Dr. Ronny Jackson as "Ronny Johnson". Jackson, incidentally, is now a Republican representative in Congress (and big Trump supporter); make of that what you will.

News roundup, 14 June 2024

- Benjamin Netanyahu is not sufficiently hardline for Benny Gantz, who resigned from Netanyahu's cabinet on Sunday accusing Netanyahu of failing to come up with a plan for victory. The thing is, Gantz and Netanyahu may have a different idea of what constitutes "victory"; for Gantz it would be the elimination of Hamas at a minimum, but for Netanyahu it would be staying prime minister and thus staying out of jail, so perhaps it's in his interest to drag the war out for as long as possible.

- While Elizabeth May says the intelligence report on foreign interference in Canadian politics left her "vastly relieved" and that she saw no any evidence that any MP was intentionally disloyal to Canada, Jagmeet Singh says he is "more alarmed than ever", which is understandable given that he was apparently targeted by unspecified foreign agents. As for Pierre Poilievre, he is unwilling to get the necessary security clearance to read the full report; Singh thinks that both Poilievre and Trudeau are, in their own ways, putting loyalty to their party over their country.

- Shannon Phillips, the Alberta NDP MLA and former environment minister who was put under intensive and probably illegal surveillance by Lethbridge police, has announced her resignation. As reasons, she cited the viciousness aimed at politicians, especially if they are leftwing and/or female (and it's a safe bet that she doesn't trust the police to have her back). The Tyee notes that Phillips is significantly to the left of the provincial NDP as a whole, which likely didn't make her decision any more difficult.

- Even if Joe Biden prevails in November, the Democrats are unlikely to retain control of the Senate, and it could be many years before they have a realistic chance of regaining it. For this reason, some are calling for Sonia Sotomayor (69) and Elena Kagan (64) to take one for the team and step down to allow Biden to appoint two younger liberal-minded judges, on the grounds that there is a very significant chance that they will die before it's possible to appoint another liberal, and this make the rightwing stranglehold on the court that much more dire. Some disability advocates are vehemently opposed to this kind of talk about Sotomayor in particular, saying that it's ableist due to her diabetes (though the Vox article above makes no mention of it), but perhaps they should look at the bigger picture, such as what might happen to the Americans with Disabilities Act if a court thoroughly stacked with Trump appointees decides it violates some rich person's property rights.

- Hunter Biden has been found guilty on federal firearm charges. In stark contrast to Trump and his supporters, Joe Biden says that he accepts the court's decision.

- Ukraine is following Russia's example in recruiting soldiers from its prisons, though they say that they aren't using coercion in the way Russia is. One of their new recruits was seven years into a ten year sentence for murdering his boss in a pay dispute; if nothing else, at least they can count on him not being too squeamish to kill people.

- Axon, the parent company of Taser, has announced an AI product that can supposedly generate police reports from body cam footage. This does not sit well with people who know anything about the reliability of AI, not least because the data the bots are trained on often has its own biases that too few cops would question.

- Winnipeg Humane Society staff arriving at work last Saturday found no less than 10 animals dropped off in front of their building, including a dog, 3 cats, and 6 rats. The notes left by the owners are rather sad (the rats' owner in particular was clearly in a bad way). It's a lot harder to sympathize, on the other hand, with puppy mill operators that abandon dogs that are no longer useful to them.

- An attempted carjacking in downtown Winnipeg failed because the carjacker didn't know how to drive a standard. To add to his misfortune, the victim was an off-duty cop, which doubtless made the police response time a little faster than usual.

News roundup, 11 June 2024

- Climate scientist Susan Solomon is somewhat optimistic that the worst of climate change can be prevented, though she acknowledges that the situation is still scary. Gwynne Dyer also has some optimism based on the potential technological solutions.

- Student editors at the Columbia Law Review were apparently pressured to halt publication of an article written by a Palestinian human rights lawyer. When they refused, the publication's website abruptly went offline with a notice that it was down for "maintenance", although it came back online after an uproar about potential censorship.

- The Public Service Alliance of Canada held a seminar yesterday evening on antisemitism and Islamophobia. One of the panelists is Avi Lewis of Independent Jewish Voices, and some Jewish members of the union are incensed that the wrong kind of Jew was selected for the panel.

- Ontario is cancelling their wastewater surveillance program that had made the province a world leader in tracking of infectious diseases, including but not limited to COVID-19. The province says this is to "avoid duplication" because the federal government has a program in place, however the move will drastically reduce the number of sites being monitored. It's almost as if the government wanted to avoid knowing in advance about future infections that might compel them to take action that might be unpopular with the masses.

- Charges against a man accused of uttering death threats against NDP MP Charlie Angus and his staff have been stayed... because the police "lost" the evidence. Not sure if the police are actually that incompetent or if they are actually complicit, but either way it's not a good look. For his part Angus says that the threats were not the reason for his decision not to run again in the next election, but it probably made the decision easier. 

- In Alberta, documents have come out suggesting that Alberta police chiefs actively campaigned for the UCP. 

- A neo-Nazi organization, Blood Tribe, waved Nazi flags at a demonstration at the South Dakota legislature. Apparently that was too extreme even for Gov. Kristi Noem.

- Ian Walker has won a convincing victory in the byelection to replace trustee Francine Champagne, who resigned after being suspended three times for hateful behaviour. Walker received 1,554 votes; the second place contender, far-right candidate Sandra Saint-Cyr, received only 430. Definitely good news, but the turnout in a school board byelection is usually pretty low, and there's no question that the hillbillies will be back for another try at the first opportunity.

- A City of Winnipeg bylaw allows the city to seize derelict vacant buildings under some circumstances, but it hasn't been used since 2016 and only sporadically before that. When Winnipeg Free Press reporter Tom Brodbeck inquired about this, city officials responded with the bland and unsatisfactory statement that "the landscape of vacant building enforcement has changed over that time". If anything, though, there's a lot more need for enforcement now than there was eight years ago.

- Three food truck operators that had been booked for the Pembina Valley Pride event in Altona, Manitoba have pulled out, citing threats to vandalize their vehicles. Organizers cite the local MLA's refusal to support a bill recognizing Two-Spirit and Transgender Day of Visibility as encouraging others who might have kept quiet to become more aggressive.

- A post on the satirical Facebook group "The City of Winnipeg Complaints Department" claimed that AI-equipped cameras would be used to enforce seatbelt use and ensure people weren't using their phones while driving. The masses being what they are, though, a lot of them thought it was real.

News roundup, 7 June 2024

- The IDF used an American made bomb on a UN-run school in Nuseirat, Gaza. The school was being used as shelter by families whose homes had already been destroyed, and at least 32 people were killed, 7 of them children. Of course the IDF claims that they were targeting militants. For their part, the Americans say that the bomb was designed to be a precision weapon (thus hopefully minimizing collateral damage) but that the Israelis weren't using it in a precision manner. And the prospects for improvement are not good, since neither Netanyahu nor Hamas' leaders can settle for anything less than total victory, which in practice means no ceasefire for the foreseeable future.

- UK Labour Party leader Keir Starmer says that he will call for a Palestinian state if he becomes prime minister.

- A Tesla shareholder is accusing Elon Musk of massive insider trading by selling $7.5 billion worth of stock shortly before some poor numbers were made public.

- The Bank of Canada has lowered its key interest rate by 25 basis points to 4.75%, following a decline in inflation to 2.7%. Tom Brodbeck remarks that Poilievre's comments a couple of years ago calling the bank "financially illiterate" look pretty foolish now. Unfortunately, to Poilievre's followers they don't look foolish; they think the bank won't have succeeded unless they bring prices down to where they were before. If they were more financially literate they'd know that drops in prices are called deflation, and that it does far more economic damage than they'd like. Poilievre himself presumably knows better, but he's happy to lead the sheeple along with whatever they'll follow, so long as it wins him votes.

- A cyclist was fatally injured in a hit and run on a busy stretch of Wellington Crescent this morning. Both the cyclist and the driver were eastbound at the time. That section of Wellington is not subject to the summer bike route restrictions like the part west of Academy is, and is used as a major thoroughfare by a lot of drivers.

- Just to make sure we all know which side of the culture wars they stand on, the Colorado wing of the Republican Party has sent out a tweet calling for the burning of all Pride flags.

- The Hospitals of Regina Foundation has raised some eyebrows when they booked American comedian Rob Schneider for a fundraiser. The fact that he's an antivaxxer should have been reason enough to think twice; people who attended the event also report that he included misogynistic and transphobic jokes as part of his routine. They did cut his performance short after they realized their mistake.

- The Yuntai Mountain Waterfall, billed as China's largest, was discovered by a hiker to have been fed by a pipe. The operator of the park where the waterfall was found said that they made a "small enhancement" so that it would give tourists their value for money during the dry season when the natural flow rate would make for a less striking image.

News roundup, 6 June 2024

- UN secretary general Antonio Guterres is urging countries around the world to ban fossil fuel advertising, drawing analogies with the bans on tobacco advertising in many countries.

A report from Canada's National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) on foreign interference in Canadian politics alleges that several MPs, not named in the report, were "semi-witting or witting" participants in said interference. The chance of their identities becoming known does not appear to be high. Andrew Coyne suspects that both Liberal and opposition MPs are involved, pointing out that the Tories waited until it was clear the MPs would not be named before making an empty demand in Parliament for their names to be released.

- The cost of the proposed widening of the residential part of Kenaston Boulevard in Winnipeg has been estimated at $586 million at a minimum. A substantial part of the cost would be in the expropriation of a number of properties. One can't help but wonder if there isn't a better use for that money.

- The controlled entrances at Manitoba's Liquor Marts have, not surprisingly, been extremely effective at curbing thefts. Other retailers, however, are reluctant to follow suit, for fear of losing market share to competitors who don't.

- The superintendent of Mountain View School Division in western Manitoba was fired in a special board meeting on Friday. In response, three long-serving trustees resigned in protest. The chair of the board says this was because the superintendent had proposed a change to his salary and that his contract was expiring in June, however the Manitoba Metis Federation believe that the real reason was that he had permitted Dauphin's Pride Parade to use a school as a starting point; the board chair denies this.

- Siemens Mobility has developed a dual mode electric locomotive, capable of running either on battery power or from overhead wires. This makes the elimination of diesel trains a realistic possibility in many places.

- The popularity of diamonds has declined markedly in recent years. Competition from synthetic diamonds (which, as a bonus, can be counted on not to be "blood diamonds"), as well as shifting consumer preferences and declining marriage rates, are cited as factors.

News roundup, 4 June 2024

- Claudia Sheinbaum, an environmental scientist who had previously served as mayor of Mexico City as well as on the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, will become Mexico's first female president, having won nearly 60% of the vote in Sunday's election.

- In South Africa, last Wednesday's election has produced a hung parliament, forcing the incumbent African National Congress government to seek out potential coalition partners.

- In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which consists of the BJP and allied parties, are projected to increase their majority based on exit polls.

- Americans are, not surprisingly, deeply divided over the conviction of Donald Trump in the Stormy Daniels hush money case. On the positive side, some independent voters say they're less likely to vote for Trump as a result of the conviction; on the other hand some of the MAGA diehards openly called for violence in response to their hero's conviction.

- A Florida company hopes to revive an old plan to extract groundwater from Wyoming and send it into the Colorado River basin via pipeline. This is of course a rather ambitious idea, and there are numerous doubts about its feasibility, both at the technical and the political level. But as times get more desperate in the American Southwest, there will be more proposals like this.

- The indigenous inhabitants of Gardi Sugdub, a small island off Panama's Caribbean coast, are preparing to relocate to the mainland in the face of the inevitable loss of their homeland to rising sea levels.

- Dangerously high temperatures are expected in much of the US in the coming weeks and through the summer. Meanwhile Mexico City could be at risk of running out of water within a matter of weeks, and in the Mexican state of Tabasco there have been reports of monkeys dying of heat stroke and falling out of trees.

- Former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo expressed disbelief and disappointment at reports that his successor threatened a prosecutor at the International Criminal Court. Meanwhile the Israeli newspaper Haaretz say that they were blocked from publishing a story about this matter two years ago by the Israeli government.

- Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused China of pressuring countries out of attending a peace conference being held later this month in Switzerland, though he did not name any countries or pressure tactics specifically.

- Two candidates in the Louis Riel School Division byelection being held this Thursday are using far-right dog whistles about "parental rights". The fact that there are two of them is actually somewhat reassuring, as it suggests that the movement doesn't have the level of organization needed to make sure only one of them runs to avoid splitting the vote. What's far less reassuring, though, is the fact that support for LGBT* rights has declined markedly in Canada, and furthermore the decline has been worse here than in many countries. My suspicion with regard to the latter is that Trudeau has become so hated that many of the simple-minded masses have reflexively decided that they're opposed to anything he's for, or that Pierre Poilievre is against, even if they don't have a good understanding of the issue.

- Singapore police have been given access to diagnostic tools to extract data from a vehicle's event data recorder. They applied this in the case of a driver suspected of speeding; this was accepted by the court as legitimately collected evidence, and she received five days in jail and a two year driving prohibition. There is no indication as to how fast she was driving.

- A man was stabbed in a bikejacking last Thursday morning in front of the University of Winnipeg. The victim was apparently walking the bike when he was confronted by the attacker.