News roundup, 12 March 2025

- A Portuguese container ship, the Solong, collided with an anchored American tanker, the Stena Immaculate off the UK's east coast. The tanker was full of jet fuel, which ignited and caused a series of explosions, setting fire to both ships; to make matters worse, the freighter's cargo included sodium cyanide. Despite this, everyone except one crew member of the Solong has been rescued. Sadly the missing crew member was not the captain but some hapless low-level sailor; the captain is, however, facing manslaughter charges.

- The Trump regime is backing off on their plans to raise tariffs on aluminum and steel to 50% from the 25% already planned. In return, Ontario is suspending their planned 25% surcharge on electricity exports to the US. Hopefully that's not deterring the feds from keeping all options on the table, up to and including fees, restrictions, or a complete stoppage of oil exports if necessary. Although in the latter case I don't think the Americans would take it very well.

- The regime has abruptly withdrawn $400 million in federal funding from Columbia University, accusing the institution of being soft on antisemitism. They've also gotten ICE to arrest a Palestinian student at the university, Mahmoud Khalil, for his activism, but a court has blocked his deportation for the time being. They apparently arrested him claiming his student visa was cancelled, apparently not realizing that he had a green card.

- Former Filipino president Rodrigo Duterte has been arrested at the request of the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity allegedly committed in his zeal to arrest drug traffickers (or certain drug traffickers, or people accused of being drug traffickers, or...)

- BC's Liquor Distribution Branch has removed all American alcohol from its shelves (previously they had selectively removed products from red states). Premier David Eby, commenting on the situation, said "if the president so interested in Canadian water, then we're gonna help him out by letting him keep his watery beer".

- Ukraine has agreed to a 30 day ceasefire negotiated by the US; in turn, the US will resume military aid and intelligence sharing. The ceasefire is, however, subject to Russian approval.

- Amazon is actually complying with the Manitoba government's request that it follow the law on the sale of machetes in the province. 

- US Customs has seen a 36% increase in the smuggling of eggs at the Windsor-Detroit border crossing since October, and a 158% increase at the Tijuana-San Diego crossing. The customs service has made 3,768 seizures of eggs and poultry at its crossings in that time, compared to 352 fentanyl seizures.

- An automated assistant for moderators at Reddit is flagging posts containing the name "Luigi" as potentially violent content thanks to the Luigi Mangione case.

News roundup, 23 Jan 2025

- Many of Donald Trump's promised changes would require a major overhaul of how government works. In particular, the political independence of various government agencies is in the firing line, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Federal Trade Commission, and potentially the military as well. This could potentially enable the Trump regime to, for instance, follow through on hints that he might get the FCC to pull the licenses of broadcasters that are insufficiently loyal to the regime (which might explain why a CBS affiliate in Wisconsin just fired their meteorologist for calling Musk out on his Nazi salute), or to purge the military of generals that are too "woke". And, of course, Trump has ordered all federal staff devoted to anything that he lumps under "DEI" to be put on administrative leave (with permanent dismissal expected to follow).

- One of the prisoners pardoned by Trump is Ross Ulbricht, the creator of the Silk Road website on the "dark web". Ulbricht had been sentenced to life in prison in 2015 on charges related to facilitating drug trafficking, hacking, and money laundering; he was also alleged to be involved in up to six homicides. But he's a hero to the crypto bros, so obviously he had to be released.

- The White House has removed the US Constitution from its website; they insist that it will be back soon. No word on whether the new page will say "no animal may kill another without cause", though.

- Despite the new administration's attack on clean energy, many in the industry say that progress is unstoppable. Whether this is true or just an attempt to put on a brave face, one thing is clear - China is moving full steam ahead on solar and wind power in any case; in addition to the climate costs of delays in the US, the Americans will risk permanently ceding the industry to the Chinese if they don't change course.

- Germany's parliament will be debating a bill to ban the far-right AfD. Under Germany's constitution, for such legislation to be legal it must be shown that the party is "aggressively opposed" to the constitution itself. The bill is supported by the Social Democrats, Greens, and Left Party. Some members of the centre-right Christian Democrats also favour the move, but not all - one senior CDU MP fears that this could "allow the AfD to represent itself as martyrs".

- The ceasefire in Gaza was followed shortly thereafter by a major military operation in the West Bank; in addition to the above-board operations there are reports of rampages by Israeli settlers in Palestinian villages in the territory.

- A planned ecological corridor along the Little Saskatchewan River in western Manitoba has been cancelled following an outburst of populist rage from the locals.

- Amazon is closing its warehousing facilities in Quebec and laying off around 1,500 people. The company is returning to the contracted-out delivery model that they used in the province before 2020. They insist that it's not because the facility recently unionized, but not too many people believe them.

- A US border patrol agent was fatally shot in Vermont close to the border with Quebec during a traffic stop; the killing is under investigation.

News roundup, 6 Jan 2025

- A new poll from Angus Reid puts the Liberals at 16% support nationally, considerably behind the NDP at 21%. Some are predicting that this will finally lead to Trudeau's resignation and perhaps a prorogation of Parliament to give the Liberals time to choose a new leader before a non-confidence vote forces an election. Tom Brodbeck thinks such a measure would be pointless and that Trudeau should go down with the ship.

- Although the Winnipeg Police Service gets more money in the city's budget than any other department, in the newest proposed budget they are only getting six new officers; this is reasonable however given the huge needs in other areas. Winnipeg Transit will be hiring 27 new staff, and 24 new firefighters will be stationed in Waverley West to deal with surging populations there. Also welcome will be eight new full time equivalents in the Urban Forestry Branch to deal with huge backlogs for tree pruning.

- Under new legislation, any business in Manitoba selling most long-bladed tools (such as machetes) is required to ask for photo ID and to keep sales records for two years. Saws, hedge trimmers, and pruning shears are exempt.

- Amazon is completely ending remote work, having previously ordered employees back three days a week in 2023. As usual, they rationalize this move with vague statements about "collaboration", while refusing to provide any data to support this claim. Of course, the real reason probably has more to do with the fact that Amazon owns 10 million ft² of commercial real estate in Seattle and would likely lose a lot of money on said real estate if they just sold it off; to be fair the impact of this would be significant and would not be limited to Amazon. It's worth noting that there is already a 10-20% default rate on mortgages in the sector regardless of the efforts of the likes of Amazon, and many fear that this will start to impact the broader economy.

- While many cetaceans are doing badly these days, orcas seem to be thriving - and are in fact expanding their range into the Arctic. Unfortunately, their success may come at the expense of belugas and narwhals.

- Ryan Wedding, who competed for Canada in the snowboarding event in the 2002 Olympics, is wanted in California for numerous crimes including murder. Authorities say the murders were commissioned by him in support of a billion dollar criminal enterprise he was running.

News roundup, 27 Nov 2024

- Justin Trudeau has agreed to an urgent meeting with provincial and territorial leaders to discuss the looming tariffs that Donald Trump has vowed to impose on Canada, though it's not clear what they're going to be able to do about the situation. Doug Ford is particularly worried, given Ontario's dependence on the American export market. Ford described the proposed tariffs as "like a family member stabbing you right in the heart"; it's kind of telling that Ford thinks of Trump as being like a family member.

- The Ford government has passed Bill 212, the legislation best known for limiting the ability of cities to build bike lanes. Other provisions in the bill have not received as much scrutiny - notably the fact that it removes environmental and other safeguards that might stand in the way of building a new freeway the government is planning.

- The Manitoba Nurses Union is hoping for a return of the weapon detection system that was tested in the emergency room at Health Sciences Centre this past summer, and is calling for it to be used at all entrances to all hospitals. The union's president, Darlene Jackson, says that nurses are reporting "escalating violence" in ERs around the city, and that this is driving people out of the profession.

- Brazil's former rightwing populist president Jair Bolsonaro has been charged with plotting a coup d’état following his electoral defeat in 2022. We'll have to see if the Brazilians do a better job of dealing with this situation than the Americans have.

- Farmers in Arizona are suffering the effects of subsidence as a result of excessive groundwater pumping, but they sure as heck aren't going to accept any kind of rules to manage the problem. Because rules are for dem big city libtard ay-leets, I guess.

- Anger over Jeff Bezos' interference in the editorial policy of the Washington Post in order to block the publication of an editorial endorsing Kamala Harris has led some book lovers to seek an alternative to Amazon-owned Goodreads. One beneficiary of this is a site called The StoryGraph.

- With the pending closure of supervised consumption sites in Ontario, someone has gone around putting up these posters that purport to be from the provincial health department, pointing out where the drug consumption will be relocated to by this move.

News roundup, 12 Nov 2024

- The FBI is investigating after numerous black Americans report receiving racist text messages in the wake of last week's election, telling them to report to a plantation to pick cotton. Alarmingly, many of the texts addressed the recipients by name.

- The Canadian Union of Postal Workers has given notice that they will be in a legal strike position as of Friday, though they have not formally set a date to actually walk out.

- An addictions treatment centre that had purchased numerous units in a condo complex in Winnipeg's Lindenwoods neighbourhood as transitional housing has received a cease and desist order after the condo association took them to court. The complex had a policy against using units for "business purposes", and while acting as a regular landlord was exempt, the court has ruled that this was not and is forcing the centre's clients to leave. Because "property values" or something. Some of the clients had apparently been followed by other residents and had their pictures taken. Well, that's Lindenwoods for you I guess...

- A poll has found that none of the potential candidates for the leadership of the federal Liberals is particularly popular with the Canadian public. Mark Carney scored highest, with 18% of those polled approving of him, but "none of the above" was the choice of 26% of respondents.

- Gwynne Dyer attempts to put last week's US election results in perspective, saying for instance that while the plan to push ahead with oil exploration is worrisome, the global demand for oil is declining, which might limit the severity of such moves. On the other hand Dyer thinks it likely that Ukraine will be thrown under the bus and that Gaza is pretty much finished (then again, Gaza's prospects were dim regardless of the outcome of the election).

- Century-old weather records are tumbling; last Thursday it was almost 23°C in Sainte-Clotilde, Quebec. Slightly more promising is the fact that deforestation in the Amazon has dropped by over 30% compared to the previous year. However, reading the fine print it becomes apparent that it's not as good as it sounds; fire damage is classified as "degradation" rather than deforestation, and there have been a lot of fires.

News roundup, 17 Sept 2024

- The federal NDP managed to squeak out a win in the Elmwood-Transcona byelection. The Liberals weren't so fortunate, losing the longtime stronghold riding of LaSalle-Émard-Verdun to the Bloc Québécois.

- At the provincial level, the Manitoba NDP is facing a bit of awkwardness after Fort Garry MLA Mark Wasyliw was expelled from the party caucus. The party's caucus chair, Riel MLA Mike Moyes, was quoted as saying that this follows revelations that one of Wasyliw's colleagues in his law practice was involved in the defense of Peter Nygard. Now it's possible that Moyes was misquoted, or misspoke himself, but if not then this is a very strange and rather troubling move - even a monster like Nygard is entitled to legal representation, and this should not be seen as a stain on the lawyer who takes the job, much less their colleagues. That said, as far back as last fall concerns were raised by the party about the amount of time Wasyliw would be able to devote to the job of representing his constituents if he remained active as a defense lawyer, and he got all pissy when denied a cabinet post last fall (even though being a cabinet minister while practicing law would have been even more difficult than being a backbencher).

- Charges have been laid against the owners of Spirit Rising House, the private, for-profit foster home provider that was giving marijuana to the kids in their care.

- Amazon is completely doing away with hybrid work. They say they fear that without such measures their corporate culture could be "diluted"; as usual, they make absolutely no mention of commercial real estate. Notably, the demand for office space in Amazon's home city of Seattle is the lowest among major American cities; I have to assume that Amazon owns a fair bit of that real estate and that this is a measure to protect their investment. To be fair, there could be real issues with a crash in that market; there could be ripple effects in the economy as REITs that specialize in these products collapse, and the decline in property values could potentially starve municipalities of revenue.

News roundup, 12 Jan 2024

- The International Court of Justice is now hearing South Africa's genocide case against Israel, calling the evidence "overwhelming and incontrovertible". Naturally Israel does not agree; nor does Germany, who are warning against "political instrumentalisation" of the genocide convention.

- Brazil's environment ministry says that deforestation in the Amazon fell by nearly half in 2023 from the previous year, having been at a 12 year high under Bolsonaro. In other promising climate-related news, grid energy storage (very important to maximize the usefulness of renewables) has been growing by leaps and bounds in the US, and Spain is looking to raise power utilities' investment limits to facilitate the greening of the grid. And a Massachusetts startup claims to have found a way to produce carbon-neutral cement.

- Donald Trump is flailing helplessly and contradicting himself trying to evade criminal responsibility for the Capitol riot. Three years ago, when trying to get the courts to overturn the election result, he claimed, in the US Supreme Court no less, that he "seeks to intervene in this matter in his personal capacity as a candidate for reelection", but now he's saying he was acting in his capacity as president to ensure the election was fair. Doubtless the MAGA crowd will not notice the contradiction (or care), but hopefully swing voters will. Meanwhile even some evangelical leaders admit to having qualms about him, but they seem to be losing control of their flock on the matter.

- Hot on the heels of reports of Alabama prisons harvesting the organs of their deceased inmates, 215 bodies have been found in unmarked graves behind a jail outside Jackson, Mississippi.

- Vienna was recently declared the world's most livable city by The Economist, and part of the reason is that it's far more affordable than otherwise similar cities. One of the reasons? Public housing. There's a lesson there, if our own federal, provincial, and municipal leaders are willing to listen.

- The Manitoba NDP's caucus chair, Mike Moyes, is filing an ethics complaint against Heather Stefanson and Jeff Wharton over the attempts to ram through the Sio Silica mining deal during the transition period.

- Security cameras on a business in Regina showed a man by the side of the road after getting off a bus at about 8 PM, waving feebly for help, for several hours as motorists drove by without stopping while the temperature dropped to -8°C. Eventually, at about 3:30 in the morning, a cyclist noticed his plight, stopped, and called emergency services, but it was too late; he was already dead.