- Marty Morantz, the Conservative candidate in Winnipeg West, says that the vandalism of several of his campaign signs is "antisemitic" in nature. Now I'm not going to endorse sign vandalism in general; it's petty and not very effective. Looking at the text of the article, though, all we see is this:
Some of the messages spray-painted over the signs include the words "traitor," "con men" and a slur for people with mental disabilities. The candidate's face in some of the signs was also defaced with a toothbrush mustache and haircut resembling Adolf Hitler's.
Now the only thing in there that could even conceivably be considered antisemitic is the alteration of his face to look like Hitler - but it's far from obvious that this was done because Morantz is Jewish as opposed to, you know, running for the Conservatives (who aren't Nazis per se but their followers are increasingly moving in that direction). Of course there's a school of thought that says the intent of an action doesn't matter as far as racism is concerned; as long as your actions cause a member of a minority group distress (or as the kiddies say, "trauma"), you've committed a racist act. I suspect a lot of people who subscribe to that view are going to be very quiet about this, given who the target was (and I don't blame them per se, but it seems inconsistent).
- Elections Canada has removed a worker from polling station duties following allegations that the worker was "attempting to influence voters to cast their ballot for the Conservatives" at an advance polling station in Vaughan, Ontario. The worker was allegedly speaking in Urdu to voters, and made comments about voting for "blue". The agency is also investigating allegations that another poll worker, in Milton East–Halton Hills South, took similar action to shift voters towards the Liberals.
- A court has temporarily blocked the Ontario government's order to remove existing bike lanes on three streets in Toronto until he is able to rule on the constitutionality of the order. An advocacy group, Cycle Toronto, had launched the challenge along with two cyclists; a lower court judge had decided not to stand in the way of demolition, but Ontario Superior Court Justice Paul Schabas says that he had additional information not available to the other judge. A ruling on the actual constitutionality of the matter could be months away.
- Elon Musk is cutting back his DOGE work following a 71% drop in Tesla's profits. Whether this is enough to save the brand is another question.
- Russia is using fibre optic drones in the Ukraine war. These weapons are controlled through a fibre optic line up to 20 kilometres in length, and can't be jammed due to not using radio. Ukraine is working on them too, but they don't have as much access to optical fibres as the Russians do. In related news, Russia used a drone of some sort (whether fibre optic or not isn't clear) to hit a bus full of workers, killing 9 people. There are suspicions that the bus was deliberately targeted.
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