News roundup, 16 Oct 2024

- The federal government has expelled six Indian diplomats, accusing India of involvement in "widespread violence" in this country. The violence in question apparently includes homicides, such as the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey last year. India has responded in kind, ordering six Canadian diplomats to leave the country.

- BC Conservative Party candidate Brent Chapman is facing calls to withdraw from the race following revelations that he circulated bizarre conspiracy theories alleging that several mass shootings, including the Quebec City mosque shooting in 2017 as well as the Sandy Hook and Pulse Nightclub shootings in the US were hoaxes. He had also made some social media posts in which he called Palestinians "little inbred walking, talking, breathing time bombs". He has also alleged that the UN is somehow interfering in municipal politics. Happily, recent polling from Angus Reid as well as Research Co suggests that BC voters - or at least urban and suburban ones - may be coming to their senses.

- Hacktivists professing to be acting on behalf of Palestinians have claimed responsibility for a cyberattack on the Internet Archive. What makes the archive a legitimate target for such activism is not clear, though the activists seem to be claiming that the fact that the nonprofit is based in the US is reason enough. Seems like pretty flimsy grounds to me; I guess organizations that are actually harming Palestinians have better cybersecurity, though, and they went for the low hanging fruit instead.

- The IDF appears to be using Palestinians as human shields. Not the first time such accusations have been made, but when a paper as sympathetic to Israel as the New York Times reports on them, it's a sign that the evidence is pretty hard to dismiss.

- An American journalist, Jeremy Loffredo, was detained in Israel last week; while he has been released from custody he is barred from leaving the country. The Israelis accuse him of "endangering national security" and "aiding and sharing information with the enemy" due to his having reported on Iranian strikes in the country.

- An auto parts maker, Yapp USA Automotive Systems, is challenging the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board; unfortunately the case is to be decided by the Trumper-dominated US Supreme Court.

- A four-year-old child has died after falling from the 19th floor of a highrise in downtown Winnipeg.

- After a delay resulting from the recent hurricane, Europa Clipper was successfully launched from Cape Canaveral. The probe is expected to arrive at Europa in 2030, in search of evidence of life.

News roundup, 9 May 2024

- Judge Aileen Cannon, who is presiding over Donald Trump's trial in the classified documents case, has delayed the start of the trial indefinitely, probably until after the November election. And guess who was President when Cannon was appointed to the bench? 

- A Republican representative from Nebraska, Don Bacon, has introduced a motion to censure Ilhan Omar; this was ironically motivated by a statement that Omar made against antisemitism, albeit one which had a little jab thrown in. When asked by a news outlet about antisemitism at the protests on university campuses, she said "We should not have to tolerate antisemitism or bigotry for all Jewish students, whether they are pro-genocide or anti-genocide." I guess insinuating that some of those students are pro-genocide was too much for Bacon.

- Doctors have removed a dead parasite from Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s brain. Whether this will restore him to rationality, though, is doubtful.

- Police say that the three men charged in the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar are members of a prominent Indian organized crime group known as the Bishnoi gang. Maybe this is true, and the gang was doing the work of the Indian government. However, since proving such a link will be very difficult, this could be a convenient way for Canadian authorities to rationalize maintaining relations with India.

- Italy's far-right government is imposing restrictions on the deployment of solar panels on agricultural land. They're also putting the military to work shooting wild boars; perhaps the latter is necessary but it does seem quite consistent with the style of that government.

- Former Tory MLA Shannon Martin, who lost his McPhillips seat in last fall's election, is seeking the party's nomination for the byelection in Tuxedo, whenever it occurs. 

- This past January was the worst month in recorded history for overdose deaths in Manitoba, at 56. The previous record was held by December 2023, with 54. Some of this may be attributable to the use of benzodiazepines, including a new designer drug called desalkylgidazepam, to cut opioids; the standard treatment for opioid overdose, Naloxone, does not work on these drugs.

- Venezuela's last glacier has been reduced to an ice field. While not as dependent on glaciers as some of its neighbours, this is not a good sign.

- Analysis of sperm whale communication with the help of AI has concluded that there is a lexicon of sound patterns that function like an alphabet, suggesting that they are using a bona fide language.