News roundup, 23 Oct 2024

- Toronto's University Health Network, which includes Toronto General Hospital, Toronto Western Hospital, Toronto Rehab, and Princess Margaret Cancer Centre among others, is reintroducing mask mandates at their facilities. Given the potential for stirring up populist rage, I have to assume that this decision was not made lightly.

- 24 Liberal MPs have signed a document calling on Justin Trudeau to step down as party leader. The document gives a deadline of October 28, but does not specify any specific consequences if he doesn't quit. Nor could it; the party has no mechanism to force him out.

- The Manitoba government is holding off on issuing new licenses for urban convenience stores and gas stations to sell cannabis. The Domo chain of gas stations is disappointed, as they were hoping to start selling the stuff; the vice-president of the Retail Cannabis Council of Manitoba is applauding the move, however. Certainly there's no shortage of places to buy dope right now. There are, however, security issues with some of the stores; while the product is generally stored in a secure location like a safe, that doesn't stop would-be thieves from doing a lot of damage to the stores before they give up. I'd have expected that actual armed robbery would be a bigger risk, especially as those stores likely do a lot more business in cash than most retailers.

- Ontario premier Doug Ford insists on pushing ahead with his plan to force cities to remove bike lanes on major streets. In actual fact bike lanes are more of a solution to congestion than a problem, but Ford doesn't know that or, more likely, doesn't care - populists like him aren't interested in actual solutions so much as being seen by their base to be doing something. And the suburban sheeple who flock to Ford don't want to be confused by the facts.

- I've often been critical of Winnipeg city councillor Brian Mayes here due to his efforts to please NIMBYs in regards to density issues, but I do have to give him credit for at least raising the issue of natural gas heating. He's introducing a motion at council's Climate Action and Resilience Committee calling for city staff to produce a report on methods of phasing out natural gas in new and existing city buildings.

- After all regular ballots were counted, the NDP had a lead of only 20 votes in Juan de Fuca-Malahat. Mail-ins have yet to be counted; if the difference is less than 100 votes after that, a recount is automatic.

- Victoria's city council is asking the provincial government to take action to support the city's small businesses. One of the things they are requesting is for the province to "consider impacts to downtown Victoria when making decisions about remote and hybrid work arrangements". Interestingly, someone in this Reddit thread alleges that the city council did not make similar directives to their own staff; presumably that's because negotiations with city workers are their problem, while negotiations with provincial workers aren't.

- A 14 year old from Orlando, Florida whose best friend was an AI chatbot shot himself with his stepfather's handgun. His mother blames the chatbot for his death (rather than, say, blaming her husband for leaving a .45 where a troubled teen could find it).

News roundup, 22 Oct 2024

- Control over BC's legislature remains up in the air due to several recounts, but one thing that's clear - the knuckle-dragging loogans did way better than they ought to, and not just in the purely rural ares either. Several Conservatives singles out by the NDP for their extreme views won their seats, including Brent Chapman (the guy who made overtly racist social media posts about Palestinians and suggested that several mass shootings were hoaxes), Jordan Kealy (who promoted the "chemtrails" conspiracy theory), and Jody Toor (who claimed to be a "medical doctor" on the basis of a degree from a crackpot online institution in Hawaii). On a more positive note, Chris Sankey (who claimed that vaccines cause AIDS and claimed that the Jan 6 riot was a hoax) appears to have been defeated, and Bryan Breguet (who questioned the existence of anti-indigenous racism) is still awaiting the results of a recount. Nonetheless, it all brings to mind the quote sometimes attributed (questionably) to Winston Churchill, that "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter".

- Related to that Churchill "quote", Liberal MP Sean Casey, who has joined the growing ranks of those calling for Justin Trudeau's resignation as party leader, said something interesting on the subject:

Voting is an emotional exercise. It’s not based on logic. If it was based on logic and rational thinking, we’d be 20 points up, not down. But there’s been baggage accumulated. People have tuned him out.

There's definitely something to that; while "20 points up" is overstating the case given the rather mediocre performance of the government, decent people voting on the basis of reason and logic would not be going for the Poilievre Conservatives.

- In the US, the ever-gullible masses are in thrall to absurd claims about the recent hurricanes, from claims about Biden and Harris' supposed indifference to the plight of victims to the idea that some nebulous "they" (presumably including Democrats, Jews, etc) are controlling the hurricanes. Of course stuff like this is not without consequence - one man has been arrested for threats against FEMA workers (he is of course unrepentant, like most such people).

- Switzerland, despite their longstanding neutral stance, has signed onto the European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI), which seeks to build a unified air and missile defence system across the European subcontinent. They reserve the right, however, to withdraw their participation in the event of an actual war.

- A baseless story being circulated that alleges that Tim Walz sexually assaulted one of his students seems to be getting a boost from Storm-1516, a network affiliated with the so-called Internet Research Agency and believed to operate out of St. Petersburg. They've previously circulated stuff about Kamala Harris as well; stuff like this makes claims that Russia's leaders are becoming more leery of Trump seem like wishful thinking.

- Winnipeg councillor Brian Mayes, who never met a NIMBY he didn't like, continues to cozy up to those people; he's now demanding a map of every location in the city that would be impacted by the proposed "as of right" zoning (which would enable buildings of up to 4 storeys to be constructed without a hearing as long as they're within 800 metres of a transit route).

News roundup, 25 July 2024

- The worst fears for Jasper have been realized as the wildfire that sprung up almost overnight swept into the townsite. The full extent of the damage is not clear, but the photos that have come out so far suggest that not much will be left when the smoke clears. This hits home to many people more than other recent wildfires since a lot of us have actually been there; spare a thought, though, for the people who actually lived in the town.

- A new poll indicates that Kamala Harris is winning over swing voters following Joe Biden's withdrawal from the race. To anyone with the slightest bit of political awareness it is downright bizarre that there are any swing voters; how ignorant do you have to be to think "maybe I'll vote for a Democrat, or maybe I'll vote for Donald Trump". But heck, we'll take it. Meanwhile Colorado Republican representative Lauren Boebert is peddling MAGA conspiracy theories that Joe Biden is already dead.

- A delegation from Manitoba, including housing minister Bernadette Smith as well as the mayors of Brandon and Thompson, is visiting Houston to study their efforts to house the homeless. Houston has adopted a "housing first" model that has successfully housed 30,000 people since it was initiated just over a decade ago.

- The City of Winnipeg is making it easier to build housing by eliminating the need for a traffic study for projects with 20 or more units. Of course the NIMBY types are up in arms; perhaps that's part of the reason that Coun. Brian Mayes, who notwithstanding his other virtues is all too happy to advocate for those people, has been dropped from the Executive Policy Committee. I'm not too keen on the fact that he is being replaced on the committee by the erratic Vivian Santos, but that's another story.

- The Manitoba government has denied a request by the City of Winnipeg to extend by two years the deadline to complete an extensive upgrade of a sewage treatment plant. The effluent from the plant is a significant contributor to the decline of Lake Winnipeg.

- Following electrical problems that cut power to some units of an apartment building in Toronto's St James Town neighbourhood, some residents expressed their displeasure by throwing their own feces at workers who had been sent to fix the matter. Evidently they don't understand that this will only prolong the outage; meanwhile some others think that the strongly worded letter sent to building residents advising them not to do this is an inadequate measure. Nonetheless, the Toronto Police Service does not yet have anything on file regarding the matter.

- The International Olympic Committee is strongly objecting to an American investigation into a scandal in which the positive drug tests of 23 Chinese athletes were never disclosed by the World Anti-Doping Agency. The IOC is threatening to reject Salt Lake City's bid for the 2034 Winter Games unless the officials sign a contract affirming "respect" for the WADA.

- Remember the confrontation between two Niagara Regional Police officers back in 2018 that led to one of them shooting the other 10 times? The shooter, Det.-Sgt. Shane Donovan, was initially charged with attempted murder but stated that the other officer, Const. Nathan Parker, had pulled his gun first after previously attacking with a baton, following a dispute over bathroom breaks. Parker's own brother has described him as a "monster". Subsequently Parker was charged with assault with a weapon, but Donovan's testimony was later found to be tainted by having allegedly seen information that he shouldn't have had access to; his denial of this led to a perjury charge against him. He has now been acquitted of that charge. It's really not easy to get a conviction against a cop...

- A judge in St. Louis has overturned the conviction of a man who has served 33 years in prison for a murder. Christopher Dunn was convicted on the basis of testimony from two boys who later recanted their statements, saying they were coerced. The judge has ordered his release, but this has not yet occurred, and the state Attorney General Andrew Bailey intends to appeal the decision.