Wednesday, August 14, 2024

News roundup, 14 Aug 2024

- The City of Winnipeg is joining with 17 other municipalities in the metro area to come up with a loose plan for what the region will look like in 2050. Of course, whenever you talk about collective planning for a metro area, you trigger something in the reptilian brains of some of the simpler folk out in the sticks, resulting in people showing up at public meetings utterly convinced that they're going to be restricted to their own neighbourhoods because that's what some far-out unbathed basement dwellers have told them in the TikTok videos they make from their cars.

- The former clerk of Mesa County, Colorado, a Republican who claimed that the 2020 election was rigged against Donald Trump, has been found guilty of... trying to rig the election in favour of Donald Trump. It's sometimes said that "every accusation is a confession" with these people; in this case that adage applies perfectly.

- The Israelis bombed another school that was being used as a shelter for displaced people in Gaza, killing over 100 of them. Predictably, they claimed they were after Hamas operatives, but almost as predictably there is nothing to confirm the truth of this claim.

- Earlier this summer, independent videographer Samuel Seligson accompanied a group of pro-Palestinian protesters in New York City and filmed some of their actions. The protesters hurled red paint at the homes of several directors of the Brooklyn Museum as well as some other targets. While targeting their homes does seem to be crossing a line, the fact that Seligson has been accused of complicity with them and charged with felony hate crimes would seem to cross a line of its own.

- Ilhan Omar, the left-leaning member of Congress from Minnesota, has won her primary despite the efforts of the pro-Israel crowd to get rid of her. Two other left-leaning Democrats, Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman, were not so fortunate; both were defeated in their respective primaries after millions of dollars were poured into their opponents' campaigns.

- Ukraine is claiming success in their recent cross-border raid into the Kursk region of Russia. They say they now control over 1,000 km2 of territory, though this is viewed with skepticism by some - but if nothing else they seem to be getting a badly needed morale boost as well as causing difficulties for Russia's activities in Ukraine.

- A Ukrainian refugee mother and son were viciously attacked with a baseball bat in an apparent robbery.

- A Texas judge who was set to hear a lawsuit from Elon Musk's X/Twitter against advertisers who pulled out of the platform has recused himself following revelations that he owns stock in Tesla as well as in Unilever, one of the defendants. I guess while having a conflict of interest is no big deal, having a conflict between your conflicts of interest is too much even for a Texas judge.

No comments: