News roundup, 10 Dec 2024

- A suspect is in custody in the death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Luigi Mangione was picked up at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania; more information about the suspect may be found here. He seems to be an avid reader; he left reviews on Goodreads of a number of interesting books, including Ted Kaczynski's manifesto Industrial Society and its Future. This comes despite the general public not having much enthusiasm for the manhunt, with the shooter approaching folk hero status. Even many prominent "internet sleuths" wanted nothing to do with the search, and the McDonald's location in question has been flooded with one-star reviews due to the staff ratting Mangione out. This probably has something to do with the nature of the private health insurance business; such companies are notorious for denying coverage under questionable circumstances. Thompson's own company has been accused of using unreliable AI systems to screen claims, for instance. For his part, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare's parent company, UnitedHealth, thinks it's "offensive" for the media to be talking about this right now. Insurers are responding to this by taking down biographical info about their executives from their websites (hey, it's a lot cheaper than actually paying out claims).

- The fall of the Syrian regime seems to have resulted from the actions of many disparate forces. The largest of these is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (Levant Liberation Union); others include a Kurdish group (the Syrian Democratic Forces) as well as others, which disconcertingly include ISIS/Daesh. Given that several of these groups (especially Daesh) are likely to be unwilling to work with the others, we can expect a fair bit of instability for the foreseeable future.

- The European Commission, the EU's executive, has delayed the implementation of their deforestation law by a year, but fortunately has refused to water down the legislation despite the efforts of some EU parliamentarians.

- The proposed property tax increase in Winnipeg has led to a lot of whining from some homeowners; the CBC quoted one resident of the Crescentwood neighbourhood as saying "it hurts". I dunno, I figure if you own a house in Crescentwood you aren't really too hard done by.

- Vancouver mayor Ken Sim wants to create a bitcoin reserve for the city; experts who haven't drunk the crypto Kool-Aid think this is a bad idea due to the volatility of the product.

News roundup, 9 Dec 2024

- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been overthrown and forced to flee the country. This apparently came as a surprise to the Americans; Biden spoke of both "historical opportunity" and of "risk and uncertainty", which when combined essentially means "we're not sure what to think of this yet". That didn't stop them from launching a few airstrikes at ISIS/Daesh sites in the country, because that's what they do when they're not sure how to proceed.

- The attempt to impeach South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has failed after his party's parliamentary caucus boycotted the vote, with the result that the parliament did not have quorum. His own justice ministry, however, has imposed an overseas travel ban on him, which indicates that his troubles have not ended.

- A former Calgary police officer is the subject of a Canada-wide warrant for breach of trust and misuse of a computer system, after allegedly using police information systems to stalk women who he initially met as a result of service calls. He is believed, however, to have left the country.

- New Manitoba legislation will prohibit the sale of long bladed weapons including machetes to persons under the age of 18 as of the new year and require purchasers to show photo ID; information pertaining to the sales must be retained by retailers for two years. Stores where a majority of products sold are kitchenware products are, however, exempt from the legislation, which sounds like a pretty big loophole to me.

- Alberta is planning to recruit foreign workers from the United Arab Emirates, which has raised alarms among labour leaders that it will drive down wages.

- The storm that hit the UK over the weekend has killed at least two people when trees fell on their vehicles in separate incidents; power was cut to thousands and rail services have been disrupted.

- Apparently black Republicans are having a hard time understanding why Trump hasn't appointed any of their number to his cabinet. Gee I dunno, I think this might be an example of what the young folks call "FAFO".

Bush planned attacks on Iran and Syria

Not a big surprise, but he's quite open about this in his memoirs:

Bush, in the 497-page Decision Points, a copy of which was obtained by the Guardian in advance of its publication in the US tomorrow, writes: "I directed the Pentagon to study what would be necessary for a strike."

He adds: "This would be to stop the bomb clock, at least temporarily." Such an attack would almost certainly have produced a conflagration in the Middle East that could have seen Iran retaliating by blocking oil supplies and unleashing militias and sympathisers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon.

Bush also discussed with his national security team either an air strike or a covert special forces raid on an alleged Syrian nuclear facility at the request of Israel.

From the Guardian. I wonder how that would have played out? Probably not well...