News roundup, 30 April 2025

- Mark Carney's Liberals won their highest share of the popular vote in decades on Monday, receiving 43.5% of the vote. Paradoxically, the Conservatives also won their highest vote share in decades, at 41%. This means a number of things - most notably, that the Liberals were bailed out by NDP and Bloc voters. How much longer that can continue to happen is an open question. And it means that despite the Liberals' high share of the popular vote, they fell just short of a majority with 169 seats. It also, however, shows that the inefficiency of the Conservative vote masks some pretty strong divisions. If you go to the interactive map of results and click on rural ridings won by the Cons, you'll see margins of victory of 60, 70, or even 80%. And like it or not, those people are not going away any time soon, meaning the Conservative Party will not become more moderate for the foreseeable future. And this in turn means that the NDP will likely go into the next election with their prospective voters pondering the same tactical voting question that they did this time.

- Despite failing to win his own seat in addition to failing to defeat the Liberals, Pierre Poilievre says he intends to stay on as Conservative leader. It's possible that the speech was written before it became apparent that he was going go lose his seat; nonetheless, some party strategists believe that he can and should stay on as leader (possibly asking someone in a rural Alberta riding to step aside so he can run in the byelection). Oh, and one interesting tidbit - by law, Stornoway is reserved for the "Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons" - without a seat, Poilievre may have to move out of there unless he can get back into the House pretty quickly.

- Donald Trump is apparently aware of his impact on the Canadian election. Currently he seems to be twisting this into some sort of perverse pride - "I'm so important Canadians couldn't ignore me". Given his volatility, we'll have to see how this evolves in the future.

- Manitoba's public health officials are trying to build trust with rural communities in the province's Bible belt in the hope of increasing the vaccination rate enough to prevent a full-scale measles outbreak. So far nine cases have been confirmed in the province, as well as four suspected cases with known connections with the outbreak in southern Ontario. Meanwhile modeling by Stanford University has concluded that there is a significant risk of the disease coming back in a big way - along with polio, rubella, and all kinds of other nasties.

- North Dakota's hospitality industry continues to take a severe beating as Canadians no longer want to spend money in a country that has threatened to take over Canada, and perhaps doubly so in a state that voted overwhelmingly for the guy who's making all the threats.

- One of the problems of using generative AI for your front line customer service is that AIs sometimes just make stuff up. People who contacted customer support for an AI-driven coding assistant regarding getting logged out of the app were told that this was "expected behaviour" under a "new login policy". The problem is, there was no such new policy. Stuff like this is not good publicity for any company, but especially when your primary product is itself dependent on AI. Companies are also finding that it weirds people out when an AI answers their call to a customer service line and starts calling them by their name unprompted, as if the AI had been reading How to Win Friends and Influence People or something.

- A woman says she was bitten by bedbugs when staying at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre to give birth to twins.

News roundup, 11 Feb 2025

- The unleashing of the Muskrats on government IT systems has resulted in several secure networks being exposed to the public internet, meaning that top-secret information may be vulnerable to hackers. Besides the Treasury department, this also involves things like nuclear research, something that you might not want just any run of the mill terrorist or hostile power to gain access to.

- One of Trump's executive orders was to stop work on a project called the National Nature Assessment, which was almost ready for publication in draft form. Researchers working on the project are trying to find a way to get it published outside of government; how the administration will respond to resistance of this sort remains to be seen.

- The Environmental Protection Agency has notified about 1,100 "probationary" employees that they could be terminated at any time, and has placed 160 staffers working on environmental justice related matters on administrative leave. Because of course any viewing of environmental issues that takes race and class into account in terms of their effects is "woke".

- The US Travel Association is freaking out over the prospect of Canadians boycotting travel in the US. Thousands of Canadians have already cancelled travel plans in that country, and there's no sign of the goodwill returning any time soon.

- A study by First Street Foundation concluded that some $1.47 trillion in property values in the US could evaporate over the next 30 years due to climate change and the resulting disasters and insurance rate hikes. The biggest declines are expected in Sunbelt states, but significant declines are expected in much of the country. Not everywhere, mind you; in parts of the Midwest and some eastern states, properties in more resilient areas are expected to increase significantly in value.

- A poll in the UK, conducted by YouGov on behalf of the nonprofit Control AI, has found that 87% of respondents would like AI developers to be required to prove the safety of their products before release, and 60% want an outright ban on any AI that is more intelligent than humans (though the criteria for the latter might be difficult to write into law). 75% want a ban on the development of AI systems that can escape their environments, while 63% want a ban on systems that can improve their own intelligence. Despite their nominally social democratic stance, the incumbent Labour government seems to have little interest in proceeding with such regulation, despite their pre-election promises.

- Evidence presented at a class action against Facebook parent company Meta indicates that staff pirated nearly 82 terabytes of books in order to train AI. Because under the Silicon Valley "move fast, break things" philosophy, following the rules is for wimps.

- Israel's defense minister is trying to argue that countries such as Ireland that criticized their actions in Gaza are "legally obligated" to accept Palestinians who become refugees as a result of Trump's plans for the territory. I don't think that's correct, and in any case I'm pretty sure Israel and the US are legally obligated not to ethnically cleanse the territory, but that's just me.

- A resolution before the North Dakota legislature calls for "a recognition of Almighty God as the source of authority" and "of the Lord Jesus Christ as the rightful ruler of nations". Some of the same legislators are also behind a bill calling on the Supreme Court to reverse its 2015 ruling that legalized same-sex marriage; worth mentioning is the fact that one of the people behind these resolutions, Nico Rios, made a social media post last week calling on the CIA to "overthrow and kick this Jew [Claudia Sheinbaum] out of power in Mexico".

ND legislative committee recommends forcing university to keep team name

For quite some time, the University of North Dakota has called their sports teams "The Fighting Sioux". Understandably, many feel uncomfortable with using a name that at best perpetuates a very one-dimensional view of the indigenous people of this continent. And indeed, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the main university sports organization in the US, has recently ordered names and logos that are "hostile and abusive" (like, say, perpetuating racist stereotypes) to be changed. The university is willing to comply, but legislators are preparing to force them to keep the name at all costs... and even legislators who oppose the bill are reluctant to express approval of the name change:

During the committee discussion, Rep. Phil Mueller, D-Valley City, said he’s never had a problem with the Fighting Sioux nickname, but he would not support the bill.

He said the state Board of Higher Education and UND concluded it’s time to move on.

“I guess I’m of common mind with them about that. This isn’t going to go away,” Mueller said. “I don’t think that the Standing Rock people are going to decide this is all fine and the NCAA is going to be happy.”

From the Fargo Forum. To make it all the more odd, the name isn't even that old - according to Wikipedia they were called the Flickertails until 1930. The university was founded in 1883, and managed almost 50 years without the name...

ND may sue Minnesota over carbon tax

Interesting:

North Dakota’s attorney general said he expects the state to sue Minnesota over a plan there to tax carbon created by electrical generation.

After discussing the issue with the state Industrial Commission in a closed session this month, Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said “It is very likely that we will be suing the state of Minnesota.”

At issue is a measure by Minnesota’s Public Utilities Commission to add a fee of between $4 and $34 per ton of carbon dioxide to the cost of electrical generation starting in 2012. The majority of electricity in North Dakota is generated by coal-fired power plants, which emit a large amount of carbon relative to other fuels sources. North Dakota officials argue that the move would place an unfair tax on electricity from the state and discourage its use by Minnesota utilities.

Stenehjem said possible legal action would relate to constitutional protections against restrictions on commerce between states.

From the Bismarck Tribune. Let's hope this gets tossed out of court...

State-owned bank succeeds -- in an unlikely place

Apparently 46 out of 50 US states are more or less insolvent. One of the ones that isn't is a bit of a surprise:

California [has] avoided bankruptcy for the time being, but 46 of 50 states are insolvent and could be filing Chapter 9 bankruptcy proceedings in the next two years.

One of the four states that is not insolvent is an unlikely candidate for the distinction - North Dakota. . .

What does the State of North Dakota have that other states don't? The answer seems to be: its own bank. In fact, North Dakota has the only state-owned bank in the nation. The state legislature established the Bank of North Dakota in 1919. Fleetham writes that the bank was set up to free farmers and small businessmen from the clutches of out-of-state bankers and railroad men. By law, the state must deposit all its funds in the bank, and the state guarantees its deposits. Three elected officials oversee the bank: the governor, the attorney general, and the commissioner of agriculture. The bank's stated mission is to deliver sound financial services that promote agriculture, commerce and industry in North Dakota. The bank operates as a bankers' bank, partnering with private banks to loan money to farmers, real estate developers, schools and small businesses. It loans money to students (over 184,000 outstanding loans), and it purchases municipal bonds from public institutions.

Still, you may ask, how does that solve the solvency problem? Isn't the state still limited to spending only the money it has? The answer is no. Certified, card-carrying bankers are allowed to do something nobody else can do: they can create "credit" with accounting entries on their books.

From here. A publicly owned bank is something us lefties have been calling for since long before I was born, but I had no idea that this was in practice in the US, much less in that state. Maybe I should stop making fun of North Dakota. Meanwhile, California is reduced to paying their state employees with IOUs...