- Donald Trump is tipping his hand about one of the reasons he wants to conquer Canada - our water. This should come to no surprise to anyone who's been paying attention; the US has coveted Canada's water for decades, and there have been all kinds of grandiose schemes like NAWAPA and the GRAND Canal about how large amounts of Canadian water could be sent south. The long-term consequences of shifting such vast amounts of water across thousands of kilometres are, of course, hard to predict and might well not be limited to one continent - more water at temperate latitudes, for instance, might mean changes in rainfall patterns halfway around the world if there were enough of it. Plus if more evaporation occurred overall this could amplify global warming, since water vapour is a greenhouse gas.
- Steve Burgess of The Tyee made a relatively innocuous post on the former Twitter as well as on Bluesky, characterizing Donald Trump's treatment of Justin Trudeau as a "hostile act". On Bluesky the post faded into the obscurity that gentle complaints typically fade into, but on Musk's platform the post was brigaded by huge numbers of rabid Trump supporters, many of whom seemed to be reading from the same script.
- Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have been ordered to get senior staff approval for "all upcoming international engagements" until the end of March. This includes international travel paid for by their employer as well as virtual meetings about pretty much any topic of significance.
- John McConnell Jr., a judge with the US District Court for the District of Rhode Island, has had articles of impeachment issued against him by Georgia Republican congress member Andrew Clyne. This is ostensibly because he was acting as "partisan activist" by pointing out the fact that the Trump administration is ignoring his court orders. Of course, he would need to be convicted by two thirds of the Senate in order for the impeachment to be successful, which seems unlikely so long as not too many Democrats are stopped from voting on the matter somehow - like say if a dozen of them suddenly get arrested by the Trump loyalists with whom the FBI is being stacked.
- Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz is warning that Trump's policies - both in their own right and in the erratic manner in which they are being imposed - puts the country at significant risk of stagflation. The fact that Elon Musk's DOGE has mooted the idea of a selective default on some American bonds does not help matters.
- The library board in the town of Valleyview, Alberta (population 1,673 as of 2021) has voted to close the town's free-standing library and move it into a new school that is being built. This will cut their available space in half, and will also potentially force the library to comply with school division rules about LGBT* content - the latter almost certainly being seen by the board as a feature rather than a bug. The library was subject to bitter debate as far back as a year ago, and the folks in this Reddit thread believed at the time that there is a broad plan to get far-right types elected to local positions so as to gain a foothold from which to build their movement. This is a tried and true tactic in the US, and folks in that thread think that it's starting in earnest in rural Canada. Notably, some say that rural Alberta is considerably more extreme than similar-sized communities on the other side of the Rockies in BC.
- Some American doctors, especially women, are looking at their options for setting up practices in Canada, fearing that the political climate in the US will make their jobs difficult or even legally dangerous. If nothing else, this could go some distance towards filling gaps in Canadian healthcare.
- The decline of organized religion in urban areas across North America and Europe means that there are a lot of badly underutilized churches sitting around. As with the conversion of office buildings into residential, converting a church is not as easy as it might seem. However, it's definitely possible; I live a block away from a perfect example of this. That said, that particular building is owned by Manitoba Housing, meaning that a fair amount of provincial money had to be spent in order to make it work. No reason why you couldn't do more of that, though.
- A proposal before the Steinbach, Manitoba city council would create a whole new zoning category - the emergency shelter - and could potentially throw the door open to NIMBYs who don't want poors living in their neighbourhood.
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