News roundup, 1 April 2025

- French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has been banned from running for political office for five years after being convicted of illegally siphoning millions of euros in public funds for her own party's use. She also received a four year suspended sentence. Predictably, Le Pen as well as her fellow deplorables around the world are having a conniption, saying that the decision saying the decision is politically motivated. Admittedly, it is very convenient for Emmanuel Macron, but it's a bit of a stretch to think the whole court system is in his pocket. A recent poll indicates that a majority of French citizens think the court ruled fairly, bit it's a slimmer majority than one might like (57%).

- The Liberal candidate in Markham-Unionville, Paul Chiang, has withdrawn from the race following his unfortunate remarks about how someone ought to claim a bounty on his Tory opponent. Probably a good move, especially since the RCMP is now looking into the matter.

- The University of Winnipeg is the latest post-secondary institution to face a financial crunch, partly as a result of cuts to international student visas. Last week the university's president brought up a clause in the faculty's collective agreement that could allow for layoffs. The fact that universities across the country are facing the same problem make this a bad time for academics.

- The Sioux Valley Dakota Nation has banned provincial courts from holding sessions on its jurisdiction until a suitable facility can be built. Community leaders say that what has been done up until now, which is for the court to use the community's mature student centre for its semi-monthly hearings, is not satisfactory because the student centre does not have the security measures needed to handle some of the violent criminals the court is dealing with (such as partitions separating the accused from witnesses). This is especially unfortunate because the circuit court arrangement was designed to make the courts more accessible to the community.

- The Green Party is calling for Canada's military reserves to be expanded by 20,000 people. Not an April Fool's joke; that's just the world we live in now. The party's co-leader Jonathan Pedneault made the announcement in Whitehorse yesterday, saying in addition that he wants to create a 120,000 person civil defence corps.

- A Canadian has been detained in the Dominican Republic because his name was similar to someone whose name was on a checked bag that was full of drugs. Maybe those who aren't deterred by the climate footprint of air travel or the Dominican Republic's problematic human rights record should look at this as another reason to stay home.

News roundup, 31 March 2025

- The new tariffs that the Trump regime is going to impose on automobiles and parts is going to impact all automakers, including American ones, but one automaker is expected to be impacted a lot less than the others. Guess which one.

- The regime is continuing with their efforts to curb activism by international students. Hundreds of students have already had their visas revoked, apparently for participating in protests against the war in Gaza. Last week Rumeysa Öztürk, a Turkish-born PhD student, was arrested by masked ICE officers and taken away in an unmarked vehicle; she had co-authored this op-ed for the university's newspaper last year, which I guess in their eyes constitutes "supporting Hamas".

- A fan was removed from the Toronto Blue Jays' home opener on Thursday for wearing a "Canada Is Not For Sale" hat, with security guards citing a ban on "political statements". Following the inevitable bad publicity, the organization has apologized to the man, and attributed the incident to an "error" on the part of staff. Some folks on the related Reddit thread have their doubts, though, saying that the Jays' chair Ed Rogers is a big Trump supporter and that security was going around in the stands stopping people from booing the American anthem.

- The Conservatives are doing their utmost to stop their supporters from saying the quiet part out loud. At Poilievre rallies across the country, they are seizing items such as MAGA hats and signs (as well as more mundane items such as knives and e-cigs) from people attending the events, presumably not wanting to give the media the opportunity to remind the non-crazy part of the Canadian population what the Cons are actually like. Stuff like this adds to fears among party insiders of division and dysfunction within the organization.

- The National Post is claiming to have found evidence of plagiarism in Mark Carney's 1995 PhD thesis. Funny thing is, most of the academics who actually went on record for the article dismiss the accusations. I guess the Post hopes that most people won't read beyond the headline.

- Paul Chiang, the Liberal candidate in the suburban GTA riding of Markham-Unionville, is facing criticism and calls for his withdrawal from the race after suggesting in a Chinese-language news conference that people should claim the bounty that China has placed on his Tory opponent, Joe Tay.

- The Vancouver Auto Show broke attendance records despite calls by the MAGAts for a boycott over their exclusion of Tesla from the event.

- A gospel singer is facing criticism for his fundraising pitch after delivering a speech to the 109th Pentecostal Assemblies for the World Convention in Baltimore last summer. Following the speech he asked church ushers to lock the doors until he got $40,000 in donations.

- China hopes to have a 100 megawatt hybrid fission-fusion reactor operating by 2030. The idea is to use the neutrons from deuterium-tritium fusion to induce fission in uranium; since no chain reaction is involved it is considerably safer than many fission reactors and no enrichment is necessary (natural or even depleted uranium would suffice). If this could be achieved, this could be an important stepping stone to a pure fusion reactor.