News roundup, 20 Aug 2025

- US Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra called Canada's second thoughts about whether to go all in on Lockheed-Martin's F-35 fighter are "an irritant that makes it harder to get to a [trade] agreement". More ominously, there are suggestions that Saab, say, might not be able to sell aircraft to Canada if the US doesn't want them to - many of the components in the Gripen fighter are American in origin, so in theory all they'd have to say is "Nice export permits you've got. It would be a shame if something happened to them". If I were in Mark Carney's position I'd be calling their bluff on that. If the Yanks were forced to show their true colours, they'd quickly find that their defense contractors are getting fewer and fewer new foreign orders for components.

- Some AI experts fear that the US power grid, in contrast to China's, is not robust enough to handle the massive energy demands of artificial intelligence. Fortunately, most of the massive amount of new generating capacity in China is solar; unfortunately, there's still a great deal of existing fossil fuel infrastructure in the country. Even more unfortunately, the current American regime will probably try to make up the difference by building new coal and natural gas plants (or nuclear, if we're lucky).

- A 40 year old man in Vernon, Connecticut had to be rescued from a tubular slide in a playground after becoming stuck inside. Authorities had to cut through the slide in order to get him out.

- The commissioner of Greater London's Metropolitan Police has made a specific order that beat cops assigned to the Notting Hill Carnival are not allowed to dance while on duty at the event. The official reason is a fear that dancing officers won't be sufficiently alert to signs of trouble, but Guardian columnist Hugh Muir suspects that the real reason is that someone might take a picture of an officer dancing, and if the police look too friendly and human, the rightwing press would see them as woke. 

- A Florida man has been convicted of second-degree murder after fatally stabbing his friend in a dispute over Donald Trump's financial acumen. The victim and the attacker were at a gathering at a residence in the small city of Arcadia. The victim had apparently made a remark about Trump having gone bankrupt (which, spoiler alert, he's done a few times) and in the ensuing dispute the other chap stabbed him with a kitchen knife.

- In other Florida news, a 71 year old woman in Wakulla County has been charged with several crimes after holding a family at gunpoint because she didn't believe the kids belonged to the father. The article doesn't say anything about the victims other than saying it was a father with two daughters under 13, but I'd wager donuts to dollars that the father is black and the daughters are sufficiently light-skinned to pass as white.

The curious double standard of the Harper government

You may recall that last year George Galloway was refused entry into Canada. Yet look who they just let in to speak:

A 17-year-old Muslim student sparked the testiest exchange and the loudest cheers and jeers at a speech by controversial U.S. conservative Ann Coulter at the University of Western Ontario Monday.

After a wide-ranging speech attacking gay rights activists, the mainstream media and the Barack Obama administration, Coulter took questions from an audience clearly divided in its support for her style of attack conservatism.

Fatima Al-Dhaher, a political science student from London, rose and spoke about comments Coulter made after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The firebrand Republican had suggested Muslim countries be invaded, their leaders killed and all Muslims converted to Christianity. She later suggested Muslims denied air travel take "flying carpets" instead.

"As a 17-year-old student of this university, Muslim, should I be converted to Christianity? Second of all, since I don't have a magic carpet, what other modes do you suggest," Al-Dhaher said to loud and sustained applause.

"I thought it was just American public schools that produced ignorant people," Coulter replied, prompting her own round of applause.

Coulter then noted many Japanese were converted to Christianity after the Second World War and "we haven't heard a peep out of them."

To shouts of "Answer the question," Coulter finally replied, "What mode of transportation? Take a camel."

From the London Free Press. Happily, her planned appearance in Ottawa was later cancelled.