News roundup, 3 Sept 2026

- The latest person to enter the Winnipeg mayoral race, Kevin Klein, used to work for convicted sex offender Peter Nygard. This point is being raised by provincial cabinet minister Nahanni Fontaine as well as incumbent mayor Scott Gillingham. Klein, for his part, argues that thousands of people have worked for Nygard's company and that he had no idea of the crimes Nygard was committing, but Gillingham points out that Klein worked as a "political fixer" for Nygard in the Bahamas, which raises questions about the veil of ignorance that he's claiming.

- Manitoba Hydro's plan to install build a new natural gas powered generating station in Brandon is coming into question following the revelations that the turbines for the plant would be built by US manufacturer GE Vernova. Environmentalists had already questioned the plan; now the premier is raising doubts about it as well. There's still a good chance the plant will still be built, of course, but some are calling for the turbines to be bought for the European manufacturer Siemens rather than from the American company (which, as some have pointed out, contributed money to Trump's inauguration).

- A Maltese businessman who had been implicated in the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia has been acquitted. Caruana Galizia was killed by a car bomb in 2017; several people have already been convicted in her death, but Yorgen Fenech, suspected by many of being the mastermind in the killing, managed to convince the jury otherwise.

- Former UK prime minister Keir Starmer has resigned his parliamentary seat. Green Party leader Zack Polanski intends to run in the resulting byelection.

- A 32 year old woman who rescued two people, including a toddler, from the Red River in Winnipeg's St. John's Park last week says she is uncomfortable with being called a hero.

- Noted feminist Gloria Steinem has died at the age of 92.

News roundup, 11 Aug 2026

- Water levels in the Danube River are now so low due to drought that the wrecks of warships scuttled by the Nazis during WWII are resurfacing. More seriously, the situation is impacting irrigation as well as power generation.

- The Launchpad, a yacht owned by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, apparently failed to respond to a call for assistance as required by maritime law. A skiff that had run out of fuel had made a mayday call; its occupants were rescued by a cruise ship despite the fact that Zuckerberg's yacht was closer. A representative for Zuckerberg claims that the crew of the Launchpad initially didn't hear the call and that by the time they did, the cruise ship had already responded.

- Leftwing candidates will again be challenging the Democratic establishment in primaries this week. Francesca Hong, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, is leading in the polls for the Democratic primary for Wisconsin governor against establishment choice David Crowley, while Minnesota's left-leaning lieutenant governor Peggy Flanagan is facing the more centrist House member Angie Craig in the primary for the Senate seat vacated by Tina Smith.

- There are now a total of 11 candidates in the running for mayor of Winnipeg in this fall's municipal election. The latest person to enter the race is Brad Gross, a realtor notorious for having the buildings he's listed burn down. These include the Sutherland and Manwin hotels as well as a Main Street apartment building. Some folks on Reddit also think Winnipeg Sun owner and former Tory MLA Kevin Klein is considering a run, based on the fact that they're suddenly getting polled on his potential candidacy.

- Manitoba Hydro CEO Allan Danroth's claim before the Public Utilities Board that new gas turbines are essential to maintain a reliable supply, already disputed by critics, is being further called into question with revelations that the existing Brandon gas plant underperforms during cold weather. As I've indicated before, Danroth previously worked for private energy companies in Alberta, so there's a good chance that he has friends and investments in that province's natural gas industry. I do hope the PUB digs deeper into these matters.

News roundup, 28 July 2026

- For the second time this year, shots were fired at the US Consulate in Toronto on Monday morning. Police are seeking a vehicle with no license plates that fled the scene at speeds of up to 140 km/h; they abandoned the chase due to safety concerns and did not have aerial support at the time. The coverage on the radio seems to be trying to tie this to two attacks on Jewish-owned bakeries; while they acknowledge that no actual evidence has been found to tie these events together, they keep talking about them in the same breath as if to imply otherwise. That's not to say they couldn't be connected, of course. In any case, nobody was injured in any of these events.

- Ukraine's latest efforts in the war against Russia have targeted warehouses owned by the Russian online retailer Wildberries. The company is the largest of its type in the country, described as "the Amazon of Russia" by some. As every real time strategy player knows, targeting civilian infrastructure to damage the enemy's economy can be quite effective, but it's frowned on under the rules of war. However, Ukrainian president Volodomyr Zelenskyy argues that the facilities targeted supplied gear to the Russian military, making them legitimate military targets.

- Manitoba Hydro's CEO, Allan Danroth, argued before the Public Utilities Board that three proposed gas turbines that would be built in Brandon are "absolutely necessary" to ensure that there is sufficient supply over the coming years. Danroth says that Hydro doesn't have the time to build enough nuclear capacity to cover the potential shortfall; that much is no doubt true (nuclear takes forever to construct) but he also claims that a combination of wind, solar, and battery storage wouldn't do an adequate job, and that the only alternative to building the turbines is buying electricity from neighbouring jurisdictions, which is expected to become more difficult in the coming years as well (presumably because of crypto and data centres, though he doesn't say that. In any case, some dispute whether he's up to speed on renewables; a lawyer with the Public Interest Law Centre called into question the cost projections used, given that batteries are getting cheaper while turbines are getting more expensive. Given that Danroth's past resume includes working for private energy companies, it's possible that he's not impartial on the matter.

- A vehicle was driven through a park full of pedestrians in the Toronto suburb of Ajax earlier this month. The vehicle fled the scene but later returned to the park and was driven across a pedestrian bridge. Durham Regional Police later found the vehicle and attempted to box it in; the driver fled but collided with another vehicle and was apprehended. Nobody was hurt; a 23 year old man from Aurora was arrested.

- Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke apparently thinks your vote should be weighted based on how much income tax you pay - and that people whose income is below the tax threshold, as well as people on a locked-in pension, shouldn't get to vote at all. Such beliefs are probably fairly common among billionaires like Lütke, but they usually don't say them out loud.

News roundup, 3 June 2026

- Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen has finally managed to put together a functional coalition government after drawn-out negotiations since the election in March. Frederiksen's Social Democrats won the largest share of seats in the country's parliament, but this was still their poorest showing in over a century. Besides her party, the coalition will include the leftwing Socialist People’s Party, the centre-left Radikale Venstre (Social Liberals), and the centrist Moderates; this means that the coalition will still be a minority government with a total of 82 seats in the 179 seat parliament and will be dependent on the Green Left and other parties to maintain confidence of the house.

- The war (or, as it's officially known, "special military operation") in Ukraine is apparently starting to sow seeds of doubt among Russia's establishment. Putin, of course, is unwavering, but things are starting to slip out in the country's press such as an article in a pro-Kremlin newspaper which quoted a political commentator saying that "the worst-case scenario is not even defeat, it's an endless special operation" as well as quoting someone else saying that, from a historical perspective, "major geopolitical losses were sometimes more useful than brilliant victories". The article was subsequently removed from the paper's website, though, and I'd say those quoted in the article should keep a safe distance from windows for the foreseeable future.

- The family of a nine year old girl from O-Chi-Chak-Ko-Sipi First Nation, Manitoba who died after apparently being turned away twice from the hospital in Dauphin without adequate treatment for a broken arm is still looking for answers. According to the family they asked about getting a cast (which would seem to be the most basic thing imaginable) but nothing was done, and the child was sent home with nothng but a note saying she would need to be away from school for two weeks. The death is still under investigation from the province's chief medical examiner, but it sounds like staff at that hospital are going to have a lot of explaining to do.

- A proposed wind farm development in St. Leon, Manitoba is triggering some local residents who worry that it could somehow mess with their "rural way of life". The location would be developed by Swan Lake First Nation in cooperation with Quebec-based Innergex Renewable Energy. It's not clear exactly how it would affect their way of life, other than vague bleatings about "flickering" and sounds from the turbines. The thing is, there is an existing wind farm nearby and the sky hasn't fallen. I'm pretty sure that if you pressed these people about exactly what's wrong with the proposal they'd either come up with some "crabs in a bucket" complaint about the farmers who lease land to the wind farm getting an unfair advantage over their neighbours due to getting a steady income, that green energy is "woke", or, if you got them drunk enough, they'd start ranting about the involvement of the First Nation.

News roundup, 27 May 2026

- When Trump was first reelected in 2024, European leaders tried their darnedest to please him. Happily, they're starting to wake up to reality - they're finally realizing that the Americans can't be trusted to keep them safe and that it's time for them to stand on their own. More governments are making efforts to procure European military hardware, for instance. And a "coalition of the willing" including 35 states, mostly European but also including such countries as Canada, Japan, and Australia, is coming together on the goal of European security - as Mark Carney said recently, "the international order will be rebuilt, but it will be rebuilt out of Europe". This is undoubtedly a good thing from a global perspective, but could be devastating for the US given how dependent many American jobs are on military spending - if Europe and Japan aren't going to be reliable customers anymore, they might have a hard time making up the slack.

- The federal government has concluded that the Clarity Act, which lays down conditions for a province to hold a referendum on secession, will not apply to Alberta's upcoming referendum, since the question on the ballot is not technically about separation per se but is "a question about a question".

- The unprecedented rise in fuel prices has driven many Americans to do something that they previously considered unthinkable - use public transit. This is especially true in California, where gas is topping $6 per US gallon, or about $1.60 a litre, but it's happening in many other places. It's even driving state governments to actually provide some funding to transit - the Chicago Transit Authority, facing a deficit of $770 million, was set to make a 40% cut in services until the state legislature bailed them out.

- Homelessness advocates are concerned that Winnipeg's encampment policies, which among other things enforces prohibitions against encampments within 50 metres of bus shelters, schools, daycares, playgrounds, pools, recreation complexes, and adult care facilities, are leaving very few places where it's still possible, especially in the inner city where many of the supports that might help get them off the street are located. Organizations like Sunshine House say that they have lost track of a number of regular clients as a result. 

- Despite the fact that Manitoba is one of the sunniest provinces in Canada, solar power has not been a priority. The fact that Manitoba Hydro could start to run short of generating capacity as soon as 2030 has driven the province to expand wind farms to an extent, and although there have been some investments in wind power, solar power has not been a priority and the latest plans call for the electricity shortfall to be made up for by burning natural gas. A pilot project introduced during the twilight days of the Selinger government in 2016 showed a lot of promise; it's no surprise that it wasn't renewed by Brian Pallister's Conservatives, but it's kind of a mystery why the Kinew government isn't more interested, especially given that solar is booming in other provinces. Hydro claims to be concerned about our short days during the winter (questionable given the huge amount of storage capacity inherent in a mostly hydroelectric grid) and solar panels getting covered with snow (which hasn't been a huge problem in other areas). I can't help but wonder if the NDP still has illusions about winning back rural voters and is afraid to introduce something highly visible that would be triggering to such voters.

- A UFC fighting cage is being erected on the White House lawn in preparation for the upcoming 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Because nothing stirs the patriotic heart of good red-blooded Americans than watching two guys beat the living crap out of each other. Yet another example of why publications like The Onion have a hard time competing with reality.

News roundup, 5 Feb 2026

- Jeff Bezos has ordered massive layoffs at the Washington Post, affecting a third of the newspaper's workforce. Among other things, the entire Middle East desk will be gone, as will be the paper's Ukraine bureau chief and correspondent. Former Executive Editor Marty Baron condemns this and previous decisions by Bezos, which he calls "ill-conceived". The thing is, though, they're only "ill-conceived" if you're thinking in terms of the greater good; if you're thinking in terms of Bezos' personal interests they aren't ill-conceived at all, especially in light of how Donald Trump is making new threats regarding the broadcast licenses of major networks in the US.

- The Trump regime appears to be issuing selective exemptions to tariffs for companies with which he has a good relationship. Nothing suspicious about that at all...

- Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi is warning federal leadership candidates to treat Alberta with kid gloves so that he has a chance of defeating Danielle Smith next year. Meanwhile, leadership candidate Rob Ashton singled out Avi Lewis for "turning New Democrats against each other".

- The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority is taking over the Golden Door Geriatric Centre, a personal care home in the Fort Garry district of the city whose private owners had announced plans to close the facility. Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara says that the province is working to fill the numerous beds that the owners had been leaving vacant in order to prepare for the closure.

- A little known fact - ICE actually has offices in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal. Their agents don't have the power of arrest in this country; they claim that these agents (who are not armed) assist in the investigation of international crimes. NDP MP Heather McPherson is calling on the Carney government to close those offices "until the human rights crisis is resolved"; whether the government will do so remains to be seen.

- Manitoba Hydro is hiring institutional safety officers for its downtown office tower following a seemingly random attack by a methed up teenager with a knife. Manitoba Housing is also hiring such officers for its downtown office. Unlike run-of-the-mill security guards, these officers have specialized training; they are equipped with handcuffs and pepper gel and are empowered to make arrests. CUPE, which represents Hydro employees, is calling for the officers to be deployed as soon as possible.

- Manitoba currently has the highest incidence of measles in Canada. To the surprise of few, these cases are concentrated mostly in the Southern Health Region, and in particular a church in Winkler, though some people were infected in Winnipeg after people from the province's Bible Belt were hospitalized at HSC. 51 confirmed and three probable cases have been reported in the province as of the 24th of January. This compares to 319 confirmed cases of measles and 29 probable cases last year, and only 18 cases between 2000 and 2024. At least 86% of the cases were in unvaccinated people; another 6.2% were in people of unknown vaccination status.

- Following the drowning death of a 12 year old student at a scuba school in Texas, her family sued the school. One thing that has come up in court is the fact that the school's owner had been caught on video bragging about the number of fatalities he'd gotten away with, which does not inspire confidence.

News roundup, 15 April 2025

- The Manitoba government has announced that it will be expropriating the Lemay Forest in Winnipeg's St. Norbert district, to stop a developer from pushing ahead to clear it. The forest will be turned into a provincial park.

- Two contracts for Manitoba Hydro to sell a total of 500 megawatts to American utilities are about to expire; the Kinew government is ordering Hydro not to renew them in yet another move in the ongoing trade war with the US. The fact that this power is likely to be urgently needed at home in the near future is probably another reason for the move.

- Winnipeg police opened fire on a stolen truck in the West End on Friday night. Shortly thereafter the vehicle collided with a house and a tank of gasoline in the back of the truck ignited, destroying the house and killing a cat inside. Amazingly nobody other than the cat was hurt, and the two people in the truck were captured. The police naturally claim that the vehicle was being driven towards them and that they believed their lives to be in danger; those who wish to assess the accuracy of their claim can watch video of the shooting here.

- As the federal government considers whether to continue pursuing the controversial F-35 beyond the first 16 aircraft ordered, one option that looks attractive is the KF-21, from Korean Aerospace Industries Ltd. in South Korea. The aircraft differs from the American product in several ways; it is a twin-engined jet, which might make it more suitable for use in isolated areas like the north. It's also considerably cheaper.

- Two Liberal staffers attended the Conservative-dominated Canada Strong and Free Networking Conference (formerly known as the Manning Conference) and left a bunch of buttons with MAGA-like slogans lying about the venue. Presumably they hoped that people would wear them and get caught on camera, or that they'd wear the one that alludes to former Harper advisor Kory Teneycke's criticism of the Poilievre campaign and spark some uncomfortable conversations. I definitely understand the temptation, but it's not a good idea, especially if you're going to have a few drinks with a journalist afterward, which these guys did.

- A Winnipeg man has been charged with assault causing bodily harm following a racially charged attack on a cab driver in Canmore, Alberta. The suspect has not been named, but based on the video, someone in this Reddit thread believes that one of the passengers was one Rod Sweeney, a member of the Hells Angels with a history of violence.

News roundup, 7 March 2025

- The Communications Security Establishment (CSE), the main agency responsible for cyberintelligence in Canada, is warning that some foreign powers (China, Russia, and Iran are specifically named) will "very likely" use artificial intelligence to try to influence the outcome of the impending federal election. No doubt this is a real risk, but it's kind of odd that they omit the United States from that list; if anything Trump has a much more direct interest in the outcome of the election than Putin, Xi, or Khamenei do. I guess they still find it too weird to say that, but they'd better get over it and start planning for it.

- Trump is once again pausing some of the tariffs imposed on Canada for another month. In response, the feds are deferring their second round of retaliatory tariffs, though the previous ones will remain in place for the time being. Manitoba premier Wab Kinew is not falling for it; the ban on US liquor in provincial liquor stores will remain in place, and Manitoba Hydro will be reviewing export contracts. Ontario's Doug Ford isn't falling for it either; he's slapping a 25% export duty on electricity from the province. BC's David Eby is slapping a toll on American commercial vehicles using the Alaska Highway. And Ottawa and the provinces have agreed to the free flow of alcohol between provinces.

- The CEO of Brown-Forman, maker of Jack Daniels, is quite indignant at Canadian provinces pulling his product from the shelves. He calls the move "worse than a tariff".

- Cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are worrying to Canadian weather and flood forecasters, who say this will impact their ability to predict dangerous situations.

- Denmark's division of PostNord (the postal service that country shares with Sweden) is completely eliminating traditional letter mail as of the end of this year, and will focus solely on parcel delivery. Pelle Dragsted, an MP with the leftwing Red-Green Alliance party, blames the introduction of competition from private companies for the decline in letter mail. This is at least partly correct, since private companies aren't bound by existing collective agreements and can thus pay their workers less. Of course, some of it is just cultural - Denmark is one of the most digitized countries in the world according to the article. Hardly anybody uses cash, and people have smartphone apps that serve as health cards and drivers' licenses. Even if the postal service didn't have to compete with the private sector, they'd still be having to compete with the digital world.

- Beckham Severight, the teen convicted of dangerous driving in the death of cyclist Rob Jenner, has been sentenced to three years in prison; this includes time served.

- Butterfly populations across the US have declined by 22% overall between 2000 and 2020. Some species had declined by as much as 50%; most worrisome though is the fact that there is no obvious pattern to the declines, though habitat loss, climate change, and pesticides are all suspected of being factors.

- The US Department of Defense is purging its websites of thousands of images that could be associated with anything that might offend the regime. Among the photos considered for removal is an image of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Whether the image is being removed for reminding the public that the US was the first and only country to use nuclear weapons in warfare, or for containing the word "gay", is not known.

News roundup, 20 Nov 2024

- A severe storm, with winds up to 160 km/h hit the coast of BC last night, causing widespread disruption and power outages but no deaths or injuries so far in that province, though south of the border in Seattle a woman died when a tree fell on a homeless encampment.

- The Kinew government has presented their throne speech, outlining their priorities for the new legislative session. These include maintaining the Manitoba Hydro rate freeze, the elimination of restrictive covenants that limit competition for grocery stores, and new measures for healthcare, including over 100 new beds and strategies for cutting ER wait times. The rate freeze has raised some eyebrows due to the financial status of Hydro and the need for the renewal and expansion of electrical infrastructure.

- Josh Guenter, the Tory MLA for Borderlands, seemingly couldn't help himself when the opportunity came to make a dog whistle about the presumed ethnicity of the trucker who killed two people near Altona last week. He has apologized for this, but he has a long history of rightwing populism (e.g. his support for the trucker convoy in 2022, which got him in trouble back then but not enough to keep him out of the good graces of the party leadership for long).

- The Danish government plans to convert 10% of the country's farmland back into forest. They also plan to tax livestock farmers for the emissions from their animals. A good start, but some bigger countries need to start doing this. And there's doubtless going to be a lot of populist pushback.

- The US Department of Justice hopes to do some "trust-busting" before Donald Trump takes power; they plan to ask a judge to order Google to sell off the Chrome web browser and impose restrictions on other aspects of the company's business. Google claims that this will harm consumers (but then of course they would).

- Winnipeg city council is debating a proposal to tinker with zoning and enable some of the parking lots around malls to be converted into housing. It's a step in the right direction, at least.

- The City of Winnipeg may be only four to six years away from having no capacity to further expand sewage treatment, meaning that no new residential or commercial developments could be approved. Construction on a new facility with more biosolids capacity needs to start immediately if this is to be avoided.

- Police were called to the campus of the University of Manitoba after a man was spotted with a knife; police say there is no further threat to the public despite not making any arrests. Some students are alarmed and confused by the lack of clarity about the situation.

- The Slender-billed Curlew, a shorebird that was once fairly widespread in Eurasia, has been declared extinct after all attempts to find one since 1995 failed.

- A Russian ballet star who had criticized Vladimir Putin has died after falling from his fifth floor apartment. It's awfully strange how careless those Putin critics are around windows.

News roundup, 20 Sept 2024

- Dozens of pagers and similar devices used by Hezbollah members have simultaneously exploded in two waves, killing over 30 people and injuring many more. Experts think this is a case of the Israelis playing the long game to get explosives into the supply chain for the devices; this may have been in the works for years. Gwynne Dyer has some ideas on the matter here.

- The fallout related to Mark Wasyliw's expulsion from the Manitoba NDP caucus continues. Caucus chair (and Riel MLA) Mike Moyes says that Wasyliw's conduct towards his colleagues and the premier shows a pattern of disrespect. Now if it's a longstanding issue, then the decision to expel Wasyliw may well have been correct - but in that case mentioning the tenuous Nygard connection, which has aroused the ire of law societies across the country, should have been avoided.

- Manitoba Hydro has plans to add 600 megawatts of wind power to the grid in cooperation with several First Nations and Metis governments. They are also trying to promote the use of heat pumps. The government concedes, however, that they won't be able to completely eliminate fossil fuels in the short term, though they want to make the power grid clean by 2035 and bring the entire province to net zero by 2050.

- Despite pulling out of the supply and confidence agreement with the Liberals, federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh is not going to back the Cons' non-confidence motion, and neither is the Bloc Québécois. Not surprisingly, the Cons are enraged by this, and some of their brownshirts tried to confront Singh on Parliament Hill on Tuesday (the Cons deny any connection with them, of course).

- South Carolina is preparing to execute a man even after new evidence, including his co-defendant admitting to having lied about his presence during the trial, has come forth. I guess they can't risk admitting that they could be executing an innocent man, otherwise there might be questions about all the other people they've executed over the years.

- A Kentucky sheriff has been charged with fatally shooting a judge following a confrontation in the judge's chambers at the Letcher County courthouse in Whitesburg. There have been no official statements about the motive so far, though there's some speculation here.

News roundup, 10 May 2024

- Solar and wind power are the fastest growing electricity sources in history. Renewables now represent 30% of global electricity production. Meanwhile Danielle Smith continues to make a fool of herself on this issue (and numerous others).

- Drought conditions have resulted in Lake Winnipeg's water level being the lowest it's been in 35 years, and the second lowest since Manitoba Hydro's Jenpeg control structure began regulating the lake level.

- Police moved in to forcibly clear a protest camp from the University of Calgary yesterday, using flashbangs (they claim that this was a response to aggressive behaviour by the protesters). The encampment at the University of Manitoba remains and has stayed peaceful, though the university has cited the existence of the encampment as a reason to cancel a public event on campus.

- Parks Canada has banned watercraft from Clear Lake in Riding Mountain National Park in the hope of containing a potential zebra mussel outbreak. Interestingly, there has been some speculation among cottagers that the appearance of zebra mussels may have been a deliberate attempt at sabotage; on this Reddit thread a poster attempts to draw a link to an activist who was accused of planning an armed blockade in the park in 2022, though no actual evidence is presented and it's hard to say if this is something real, or just an attempt to poison the proverbial well.

- Legislation introduced in Ontario in 2022 which changed the fees paid to municipalities by developers led to a backlash from several municipalities. In response, the provincial government launched audits to determine the impact - only to cancel them (presumably because they had the potential to make the government look bad).

- Tim Hortons is testing new fibre coffee cup lids at some locations. Conservative MP Lianne Rood is up in arms about the new lids, which she considers to be "woke" because they aren't made of plastic.

- The town of Oakville, Ontario has voted to turn down money from the federal government because they don't want to densify their neighbourhoods. Some important context - despite officially continuing to call itself a "town", Oakville is larger than many cities in the province, at over 213,000 people. Apparently the residents want to continue to delude themselves into thinking that they're simple, small-town folk who don't want none of that big city stuff, and certainly nothing like apartments or fourplexes that might bring those darned poors to town. They also famously banned clotheslines until a previous government prohibited municipalities from banning them.

- The former CAO of the Rural Municipality of North Cypress-Langford has pleaded guilty to diverting about $30,000 to the Carberry Curling Club to replace money she'd stolen from the club while serving as their treasurer. I'm guessing that a gambling problem was involved; that seems to be how this sort of thing usually happens.

- Rex Murphy (or "Nervous Rex", as the good folks at CODCO called him) has died, though not before spouting a lot of rightwing propaganda in recent years.

News roundup, 22 Feb 2024

- The IDF opened fire on a UN convoy carrying food supplies in Gaza earlier this month, then blocked the trucks from going where the food is most needed. One can't help but think of the phrase "Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction" from Article II(c) of the Genocide Convention, though I guess there's enough plausible deniability for the "calculated to bring about" part. Maybe we'll have a clearer picture of the Israelis' intentions in a few decades, but it's certainly not a good look.

- Donald Trump has pretty much admitted that he didn't want the Congressional deal on border controls to go through because the Democrats might get some of the credit for it.

- Alexander Smirnov, the FBI informant charged with fabricating claims about Hunter Biden's activities in Ukraine, is alleged to have had extensive contact with Russian intelligence agencies. Prosecutors say that he has admitted that "officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a story".

- The Clean Air Act in the US has a provision known as the "good neighbour rule", which is meant to oblige states to consider the effects of air pollution on other states downwind of them. Unfortunately it is being whittled down in the courts, and now Indiana, Ohio, and West Virginia are challenging the whole thing in the Supreme Court. In related (and also disconcerting) news, an appeals court has ended a moratorium on new coal mines on public lands.

- Manitoba Hydro's Jenpeg generating station is offline for more detailed inspections after problems were found with one of the plant's turbines. An awkward fact is that the turbines were made in the Soviet Union half a century ago, so if replacement is necessary, it will not be a simple matter.

- At one time the Canadian federal government was heavily involved in the construction of housing, until the neocons and neoliberals came along and sold the masses on the idea that the market should handle all that stuff. It would be good if we had a government that was willing to seriously invest in housing, but it's worth noting that there was a problem with the way it was implemented back in the day - it was mostly single-family houses, which shifted the population towards the suburbs.

- In Minnesota, a bill to limit municipalities' ability to stop the construction of the "missing middle" housing with 2-4 units is expected to pass. It has broad support from environmentalists, the state's Chamber of Commerce, and social justice organizations. Notably, the biggest opponents of the bill are the actual municipalities; presumably this is because they're the ones who have to put up with the whining and bleating from the NIMBYs.

- Any regular reader of this blog knows what I think of building more highways as a solution to congestion (in case you're new here, it's freaking stupid). Doug Ford seems to disagree; he's introducing what he calls the "Get It Done Act" (the Ontario Tories love lame populist names like that) to weaken the environmental assessment process and facilitate expropriations in order to indulge in the aforementioned stupidity.

- The ice trail on the Red River has been closed after only 9 days in operation owing to the warm weather.

News roundup, 14 Feb 2024

- Manitoba Hydro is "parting ways" with CEO Jay Grewal, according to the chair of Hydro's board. This seems to be related to Grewal's plans to buy privately generated power for the utility; the Tories accuse the NDP of being "ideologically rigid" on the matter.

- Some housing advocates are cautiously optimistic about a report from federal housing advocate Marie-Josée Houle; others see this as "just one more report" making similar recommendations to previous reports. It's worth noting that Finland is well on the way to eliminating homelessness with a "housing first" model; on the other hand the devil is in the details with these things; Houston and San Diego both tried such an approach at the municipal level, with widely differing success (and not in the way you'd expect, either).

- Legal Aid Manitoba hired Mainstreet Research to conduct a poll asking members of the public questions about what they know and believe about Jeremy Skibiki, who is facing murder charges in the deaths of four First Nations women in Winnipeg. Skibiki's lawyers are working with Legal Aid, and it's widely suspected that they're trying to find support for his request for a judge-only trial in the case. MMIWG advocates are decidedly uncomfortable with this; a representative of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs says this "disregards the dignity of the victims and their families", though others argue that they're just trying to act in the interests of their client.

- The federal Liberals would be well advised to have a talk with their leader about whether he ought to stay on, if recent polls are any indication. I doubt that any replacement could prevent a Tory majority, but Trudeau's brand is so tarnished that the party could face virtual annihilation unless something changes.

- The Democrats have captured George Santos' old seat in the special election necessitated by Santos' ouster from Congress. This is a good sign for sure.

- The US House of Representatives has voted to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his handling of the Mexican border. Of course it won't go anywhere in the Senate. Meanwhile many Republicans in the House are admitting that tossing Kevin McCarthy as speaker in favour of Mike Johnson may have been a mistake.

- The Liquor Control Board of Ontario is cancelling plans to have controlled entrances to liquor stores, similar to those ubiquitous in Manitoba. Notably, this was only supposed to apply to northwestern Ontario, not the whole province; there were some privacy concerns raised, as well as concern by the union that they weren't consulted adequately.

- Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital is stepping up security, and police are investigating, following several incidents alleged to have occurred at a pro-Palestinian protest that spilled onto hospital grounds. While I generally support their cause, and tend to be skeptical when such protesters are accused of antisemitism, I have to question whether a hospital is an appropriate target for this, any more than hospitals were appropriate targets for the trucker convoy a couple of years ago. And given this particular hospital's historic connection to the Jewish community, in this case the charge of antisemitism just might be valid if the motivation for targeting it was what it looks like from the outside.

- A shooting incident at the Kansas City Super Bowl victory celebration parade has left multiple people injured. Whether this was actually an attack on the parade or a coincidence is not clear. One attendee was quoted as saying "It sucks that someone had to ruin the celebration, but we are in a big city". I have to wonder, though - if it really was politically motivated, it's far more likely that the shooter came from a small town.

News roundup, 2 Feb 2024

- The Manitoba PCs are accusing the NDP government of "interfering" in the operations of Manitoba Hydro, because they intend for new power generation to be built by the utility itself rather than contracted out. No surprise here, the Cons are an enemy of the public sector. A bit rich, though, considering how much they interfered with MPI as well as Hydro when they were in power.

- Half of all American adults now say that Israel has gone too far in their campaign against Hamas. 

- China installed more solar capacity last year than the US has in total.

- The US Environmental Protection Agency is proposing that per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), often referred to as "forever chemicals", be categorized as "hazardous to human health".

- Legislators in several American states are introducing bills aimed at stopping the use of environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria for public investments such as pension funds. One of the most extreme was introduced in New Hampshire of all places, and if passed would have made it a felony, punishable by up to 20 years in prison, for any official with the state treasury, pension fund or executive branch to "knowingly" make investment decisions using ESG criteria. Fortunately that bill was killed off in committee.

- A community organization called SABE Peacewalkers, which calls itself a "relationship-based de-escalation team", has come under fire after a couple of its members were caught on video being less than peaceful with vulnerable people.

- Glenn and Jennifer Ferris, a couple who installed security cameras in their home, are getting pushback from the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, following objections from the home care staff looking after his elderly mother. This despite the fact that the cameras are on the outside of the house, and in rooms where the home care workers shouldn't have to go, which calls into question the workers' motives for wanting them turned off. The WRHA has threatened to withhold service if the cameras are not turned off.

- A trucker was arrested at the border crossing at Boissevain, south of Brandon, after allegedly trying to smuggle more than 400 kilograms of meth. That's equivalent to about three doses for every resident of the province.

- The erratic Lauren Boebert has called for measures such as "alligator moats" to secure the border with Mexico. Sounds like something out of Jacob Two-Two Meets The Hooded Fang rather than a serious proposal.

News roundup, 30 Jan 2024

- Manitoba Hydro's CEO says that new generating capacity may be needed by the end of this decade. They're looking at wind, which is a good move because wind farms can be built a lot more quickly than dams.

- Toronto mayor Olivia Chow plans to introduce a "municipal non-resident speculation tax" in the hope of preventing her city from going the way of Vancouver.

- A participant in the 2022 Coutts border protest who accelerated towards police has been sentenced to 10 months in prison as well as being prohibited from driving for a year.

- Ontario is planning to refurbish four reactors at the Pickering nuclear plant, so as to extend the life of the plant for another 30 years. This is, essentially, the path of least resistance; building a new plant would be extremely expensive and take time that we just don't have. One hopes that they'll expand renewables in a big way too, though.

- A Republican member of the Oregon legislature (and congressional candidate) suggested in an interview that non-Christians are unfit for elected office, though he partially walked back his comments following criticism.

- Israeli soldiers disguised as doctors assassinated three Palestinians in the West Bank city of Jenin. Israel's government says that the victims belonged to a Hamas cell that was planning an attack. Meanwhile, members of Netanyahu's cabinet spoke at a far-right conference and effectively endorsed ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Stuff like this is probably not helping Israel's image abroad.

- Chicago is the latest city to look at banning natural gas in new buildings, though hospitals, crematoria, and commercial kitchens will be exempt. The natural gas industry is not pleased, of course.

- Marjory Taylor Greene is calling Republican senators working with Democrats on immigration control measures "traitors", doubtless because it will make it harder to attack the Dems on immigration. In other border news, the "God's Army" truck convoy has thinned out following conspiracy theories that it's actually an FBI front.

- A man in Birmingham, England has pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily harm following an altercation at a concert. Apparently he became enraged because the glare from the victim's bald head was getting in his eyes.

Carbon capture project leaking into their land, couple says

As many have predicted, it seems that carbon capture isn't the panacea many had hoped:

First there were the strange blooms of algae on water that had pooled in a gravel pit near Jane and Cameron Kerr’s house. Then there were the dead animals – a cat, an African goat, a rabbit, a duck, a half-dozen blackbirds. Then there were the night-time blowouts, which sounded like cannons and left gashes in the side of the pit.

But what started as a series of worrisome problems on a rural Saskatchewan property has now raised serious questions about the safety of carbon sequestration and storage, a technology that has drawn billions in spending from governments and industry, which have promoted it as a salve to Canada’s growth in greenhouse-gas emissions.

Before the blowouts made them nervous enough to leave home, the Kerrs lived on a farm near Weyburn, which is home to a major project that involves taking captured carbon dioxide and injecting it into the ground. It pumps 6,000 tonnes of the substance underground ever day; since 2000, it has sequestered more than 16 million tonnes, all of it 1.4 kilometres below the surface.

From the Globe. This is unfortunate, though not particularly surprising. Happily, Saskatchewan is looking at alternatives, notably buying electricity from Manitoba. The western route for Bipole III doesn't look so bad now, does it?

Yet more water troubles

This time it's in Syria:

AR RAQQAH, Syria — The farmlands spreading north and east of this Euphrates River town were once the breadbasket of the region, a vast expanse of golden wheat fields and bucolic sheep herds.

Now, after four consecutive years of drought, this heartland of the Fertile Crescent — including much of neighboring Iraq — appears to be turning barren, climate scientists say. Ancient irrigation systems have collapsed, underground water sources have run dry and hundreds of villages have been abandoned as farmlands turn to cracked desert and grazing animals die off. Sandstorms have become far more common, and vast tent cities of dispossessed farmers and their families have risen up around the larger towns and cities of Syria and Iraq.

From the New York Times. This should be a familiar refrain to regular readers of this blog (see for example this or this). And we're not likely immune to this stuff either. Danny Blair, a climatologist at the University of Winnipeg, thinks we should be preparing in advance for trouble:

It's time for Canadians to wake up to the reality of climate change. Many already do understand that the consequences of climate change for our part of the world and the world as a whole are profound, but many do not. Of course, there are both positive and negative aspects to climate change, but it is increasingly clear the climate trends that will almost certainly prevail throughout this century will leave us with a world in which the benefits of climate change will be swamped by its environmental, economic and humanitarian costs.

From the Free Press. And what might some of these costs be?

On the other hand, insects and weeds will also flourish in a warmer world, perhaps necessitating an increase in the use of pesticides. Warmer summers will also increase the demand for energy to cool our buildings and will increase the frequency of heat-related health problems. Forest fires will become more frequent and the winter recreation season will be shortened. Importantly, the network of winter roads across Manitoba will become even less reliable than is already the case, causing significant and costly impacts.

Impacts related more directly to water are likely to be even more significant. Climate change will likely result in higher annual precipitation totals across Canada, but they also show that the summers will be drier. With more of the annual precipitation falling in the winter and more heat available to evaporate surface water, it is quite likely that the Prairie provinces will have to suffer through more frequent and more severe droughts. Ironically, it is also likely that floods will become even more problematic than they are today, as the hydrological cycle kicks into a higher gear. Thus, the survivability of the settlements of the southern prairies already stressed by the ups and downs in agricultural productivity may become even more tenuous.

It's worth noting that when scientists try to predict the fine details of the effects of climate change there is an element of speculation involved (and it should be noted that Blair is cautious himself, using words like "likely" rather than making definitive statements). Climate is pretty complicated stuff, and we should be preparing for a number of eventualities.

One eventuality that Manitoba should definitely be preparing for, though (and yes, I've harped on this in the past) is the melting of the glaciers in the Rockies. Right now, the Saskatchewan and Churchill Rivers are flowing very nicely indeed, fed by the melting glaciers... but in a few decades the glaciers will be gone, and then those rivers will be a lot smaller. The probably won't dry up entirely, since it will still rain and snow periodically, but Manitoba Hydro should be planning for this now by getting other clean energy sources online as quickly as possible. Ideally, what we should have is enough solar and wind capacity to keep Jenpeg closed enough of the time that Lake Winnipeg can be kept near its current level. Will we do it? That remains to be seen...

Manitobans split on Hydro line

Looks like it may not be the killer issue the Tories hoped:

There is no consensus among Manitobans where Hydro should build its new transmission line.

Global News' exclusive Ipsos Reid poll shows 31% say it should go on the west side, 39% feel the eastern route is better while 30% have no opinion.

From Global. Sure, more people oppose the selected route than support, but not by a huge margin, and the number of "no opinion" responses suggests that it's not going to be a hot issue. That doesn't mean the NDP doesn't have to worry (there have been enough negative polls to make one wonder) but it does mean that the Bipole isn't likely to be the deciding factor in next fall's election.

Construction begins on St. Joseph wind farm

Not without hurdles, but it's underway:

Construction has started on the St. Joseph Wind Farm after Manitoba Hydro announced they would loan Pattern Energy $260 million towards the $345 million project.

After years of delays and changes to the original plan, Pattern Energy will have 60 Siemens SWT-2.3 MW turbines producing 138 MW in operation by Christmas of this year.

"These things don't generally take more than six to 12 months to build," Colin Edwards, senior developer Canada said.

The construction may be quick but getting there was not. In 2007 the call for submissions was put out by Manitoba Hydro. In November 2008, they announced they would go with a bid by Babcock and Brown Canada to build a 300 MW wind farm. That deal never materialized after their Australian parent company faced financial distress. The North American wind division was turned into Pattern Energy, with many of the same names that were involved in the first proposal.

From the Altona Red River Valley Echo. Not a moment too soon -- we're going to need a lot more of this soon, especially once the flow rates of the Assiniboine, Saskatchewan, and Churchill rivers start to decline as the glaciers on the Rockies vanish. The more wind and solar capacity we have the better, because when it's producing power it will be possible to reduce the flow rate through the control structure at Jenpeg, thus keeping Lake Winnipeg as full as possible.

The west side route suddenly makes a lot more sense

The controversy over the routing of Bipole III is one of the very few issues where the editorialists at the Free Press have been able to score legitimate points against the government. The government has good reasons for choosing the west side route, namely the desire to limit development on the relatively pristine east side, but the contrary view, namely that the extra cost (which is not insignificant) as well as the line losses will outweigh the benefits, is certainly defensible. However, the balance may have shifted significantly in the government's favour with this announcement (h/t Endless Spin Cycle):

Manitoba and Saskatchewan will look into improving the capacity of electric power transmission between the two provinces.

The decision is one of several to come out of a first-ever joint meeting of the two provincial cabinets today in Yorkton, Sask.

Of course, this isn't a fait accompli, but the western route is quite favourable for sending power to the west, and I've often wondered why they haven't brought this up before now. Perhaps they wanted to make sure they had something resembling a deal first. In any case, if this goes through it'll mean that Saskatchewan will burn less coal than before. Can't complain about that.