News roundup, 7 Aug 2026

- The heat wave striking Europe continues to rage. Temperatures as high as 42°C have been recorded in Slovakia; in Poland two coal-fired power plants were forced to shut down due to low water levels in the Vistula River, removing 1.3 gigawatts of power from the country's grid.

- Danielle Smith is criticizing the Edmonton Police Service for a video that encourages people to report hate speech. Smith posted on X (the former Twitter) that the police should focus on crime, not "free speech".

- A judge in New Mexico has slapped Meta with a $567 million fine for failing to warn the public about the possible harm that its social media platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, can do to children. This is on top of another $375 million in fines related to the same case. The judge compared the psychological harm done to young people to pollution, calling it a "public nuisance".

- Several legislators in the US are concerned that "prediction markets" such as Polymarket and Kalshi allow people to place bets regarding wildfires, possibly providing an incentive for people to deliberately start said fires. They are calling on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which regulates the industry, to prohibit the practice. Similar concerns are being raised about such bets on the outcome of clinical trials, with fears that researchers could have an incentive to tamper with trials in some way.

- Toronto police have charged two people, aged 19 and 15, in connection with the recent gunfire incident at the US consulate in that city. The two are believed to have been hired for the job; police are still trying to determine who hired them.

- A 14 year old Thai boy killed his grandparents, then went on a rampage at the prestigious school he attended outside Bangkok. Five teachers were fatally shot and more than 30 teachers and students were wounded before he turned the gun on himself. The murder weapon was a 9 mm handgun owned by his grandfather.

The teabaggers show their true colours

I've often used Blaque's Blog of Horrors as a source for this stuff, since being an American he's much more attuned to this stuff than I am (indeed, by the look of things it would be difficult to avoid seeing it). This weekend he (and his regular commenters) have found some dandy examples as the vote on the health care package approaches.

Exhibit A:

This is actually relatively benign as these things go, since the protesters are relatively civil there, but have a look at what happens when they try to answer simple questions about why they're there. It would be amusing if that were all there was. Unfortunately, it gets worse. Exhibit B:

The way they treated that guy is horrible. And this isn't the only example of their true colours coming to the surface, as this HuffPo story shows:

A staffer for Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) told reporters that Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) had been spat on by a protestor. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a hero of the civil rights movement, was called a 'ni--er.' And Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was called a "faggot," as protesters shouted at him with deliberately lisp-y screams. Frank, approached in the halls after the president's speech, shrugged off the incident.

But Clyburn was downright incredulous, saying he had not witnessed such treatment since he was leading civil rights protests in South Carolina in the 1960s.

"It was absolutely shocking to me," Clyburn said, in response to a question from the Huffington Post. "Last Monday, this past Monday, I stayed home to meet on the campus of Claflin University where fifty years ago as of last Monday... I led the first demonstrations in South Carolina, the sit-ins... And quite frankly I heard some things today I have not heard since that day. I heard people saying things that I have not heard since March 15, 1960 when I was marching to try and get off the back of the bus."

Just in case you didn't already know that. And check out some of the pics in that story too (particularly the "If Brown can't stop it, Browning can" placard). These people are potentially very dangerous. A commenter on one of the YouTube videos above suggested that if Fox News told them to start killing everyone except white conservatives, a Rwanda-like massacre could result, and I don't think that's so implausible anymore. Especially considering who else is getting involved:

It’s no secret that conservatives have a hard time keeping racism out of their ranks (airwaves), and now it seems it has surfaced in even their grassroots (astro turf) movements. The whole tea party thing (except with representation and a high income bracket this time) is being organized by conservative corporate lobbyists, Freedom Works and Americans for Prosperity, who are no doubt milking this all the way to their billion dollar bank accounts.

If that wasn’t hard enough for real [sic] conservative activists to swallow, they are really going to hate showing up at rallies only to rub elbows with white nationalists. Kris Kobach got the party started in Kansas on April 4th when he hosted a joint tea party/anti-immigrant rally with Billy Gilchrist, Topeka chapter leader for the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. In 2004 Kansas Republican leader Timothy Burger wrote in response to Kobach’s failed congressional run, “It doesn’t help matters that Kobach was hired by FAIR, widely perceived as a racist anti-immigrant group during the campaign.” But that stinging accusation hasn’t stopped Kobach from working for the John Tanton network ever since, or from dipping his tainted toes into anything that smells ripe for manipulation and publicity.

Blaque has suggested in an earlier post on his blog that lefties (at least in the US) should start buying guns, because the righties already have them. I hate to advocate that, given how arms races generally end up, but if any First World country is headed for civil war, America is probably the prime candidate.