News roundup, 7 June 2026

- Another severe storm hit southwestern Manitoba on Sunday night. No tornadoes have been confirmed, but strong winds and hail caused substantial damage to property and cut power to about 6,000 customers. Floodwaters also came dangerously close to breaching dikes in the community of St. Lazare.

- The mayor of St. Andrews, Manitoba is suing her own municipality to recover legal fees incurred during her ultimately successful fight to regain powers that the RM's council had stripped from her. The episode began within a year of her election in 2018, after she clashed with five council members over a wastewater treatment project.

- Several centrist Democrats (who, it should be noted, are only "centrist" in the American context; they'd be considered moderate rightwingers in most countries) are running scared at the success of left-leaning candidates in several recent Democratic primaries. In an open letter called "The Promise to America" they explicitly declare themselves "capitalist, not socialist" and talk about "extremes on right and left". Well, they're  half right there, I suppose, in that the present day right really is extreme. But to imply that people like recent primary winners are just as extreme as the MAGA crowd one has to be either disingenuous or delusional.

- Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has been in hospital since mid-June and very little information about his condition has been made public, at least at an official level. However, NBC has apparently gotten hold of a recording of EMS communications indicating that CPR was performed on a person at an address associated with McConnell on the day that the senator was hospitalized. The lack of information from his office since then has led some to speculate that he's being kept on life support to avoid forcing a special election (i.e. byelection); Kentucky law requires one if a vacancy occurs more than 3 months before the next election. Since McConnell's seat is one of those up for grabs in November, this would mean he'd have to be kept alive till August in order to avoid the kind of awkwardness that might result if, say, recently primaried representative Thomas Massie were to run for the seat. Speculative for sure, but not implausible.

- Far right fundamentalist Christian nationalist pastors/podcasters Wesley Todd and Joel Webbon called for churches that display Pride flags to be seized by the state and transferred to more pliant churches and their pastors defrocked and prosecuted. What's perhaps more interesting is that they warned allies who are running for political office to refrain from saying things like that out loud, because the voters aren't ready for such overtly totalitarian messaging. Webbon has said some other "interesting" things, such as telling parents that they're failing in their duty if they don't warn their kids to stay away from black people and that women shouldn't be allowed to vote.

- Donald Trump called FIFA president Gianni Infantino after Team USA striker Folarin Balogun was given a red card during the match against Bosnia-Herzgovina; subsequently, FIFA then reversed the suspension in time for the Americans' match against Belgium. It wasn't enough to stop Belgium from giving them a 4-1 thrashing and eliminating them from the World Cup, though.

News roundup, 8 June 2026

 - Some members of Toronto's Jewish community have got their knickers in a knot over a promotional jersey put out by the TTC. Apparently the jersey has an upside down red triangle somewhere on it, and certain people say it makes them "uncomfortable" due to its resemblance to a symbol used by Hamas. The National Post, never a paper to turn down such an opportunity, interviewed Talia Klein Leighton, president of an organization calling itself "Canadian Women Against Antisemitism", who thinks they should have run the symbol by an AI before using it, and specifically listed Elon Musk's Grok as an example of something they could have used. As someone in this Reddit thread says, "I mean if there is an AI that knows racism..." Meanwhile Toronto city councillor James Pasternak, who represents York Centre, actually suggests, as a serious possibility, that "a member of the anti-Israel mob inside the TTC or one of its suppliers played a sick trick". Beyond the ridiculous level of paranoia displayed here, there's another peculiarity. There's a school of thought among some anti-racism activists that the intent of an action is irrelevant to whether it's a racist act or not; if someone from an oppressed ethnic group feels threatened or uncomfortable as a result of the act, it's racist, end of story. That seems to underlie a lot of the positions taken by the pro-Israel crowd about whether something is antisemitic, but I'd wager you donuts to dinars that they would not want to apply this principle more broadly, and moreover that those who do want to apply it more broadly would tie themselves in knots to carve out an exception for this example.

- A CBC investigation has found that 14 Facebook accounts actively promoting Alberta separatism are not actually operated by Canadians but rather come out of the US, Indonesia, and the south Asian countries. Some of these influencers are among the top posters to Alberta-focused discussion groups. An earlier investigation also found that some YouTube channels promoting separatism operate out of the Netherlands. As far as anyone can tell, this doesn't seem to be an orchestrated conspiracy as such; rather, the influencers have found that activity of this sort leads to more engagement, and social media platforms pay them based on engagement.

- Nick Clegg, the former leader of the UK's Liberal Democratic Party, who later served as Meta's head of global affairs, says that by the time he left the company in March of last year there were clear signs that Meta as well as other Silicon Valley companies had embraced MAGA. Their motives are not discussed, but I suspect that they believe that the Trump regime is their best chance of avoiding heavy regulation of AI, and against that such piddly matters such as social justice, much less decorum, are insignificant.

- Five researchers were ejected from the annual general meeting of the American Diabetes Association after handing out reprints of an editorial from the journal Diabetes Care that was highly critical of the Trump regime's attacks on scientific research. The reprints were distributed outside a room where National Institutes of Health director Jay Bhattacharya was scheduled to speak (he cancelled at the last minute, though it's not clear if the cancellation was connected to this). ADA officials claimed that this was a violation of the organization's code of conduct for conferences, which among other things prohibits "disorderly or disruptive conduct such as protesting". Most likely, though, they're just terrified of doing anything that might antagonize the Mango Mussolini.

- Conservation authorities in several US states are removing catch limits for anglers on certain reservoirs - because drought conditions are so bad that the reservoirs are expected to dry up anyway.

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, 25 May 2026

- A man is dead after allegedly opening fire on a security checkpoint at the White House. The deceased had previously been arrested in July of last year at a different White House checkpoint claiming to be Jesus Christ.

- US Ambassador Pete Hoekstra claims not to understand why Canadians are frustrated with his country. Of course, this brings to mind Upton Sinclair's remark that "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it".

- Climate scientists now say that the worst case emissions scenario, known as RCP8.5, is no longer plausible. That scenario projected an increase of 4-5°C by the end of the century, and had been considered the "business as usual" scenario, but thanks to a decline in coal and the availability of cheap solar and wind technology use it's unlikely to get quite that bad. While this is good news, things are still going to get very bad in many parts of the world and this is no time for complacency.

- Microsoft is quietly scaling back internal use of AI, apparently after finding that it's not saving them money. They're cancelling the majority of licenses for Anthropic's Claude Code.

- The Colorado Information Analysis Center, which provides resources to police on potential terror-related threats, has warned that recruitment tweets sent out by ICE contain so many white supremacist dog whistles that they could endanger the public by creating a "permissive environment to engage in vigilante action and/or violence against individuals perceived to be immigrants". You know it's bad when cops are worried about something like this.

- The inaugural Enhanced Games was held in Las Vegas over the weekend. The event, created by an Australian businessman, is an Olympic-style competition, except that participants are allowed to take performance-enhancing drugs. I remember some people suggesting that something like this might be a good idea after the Ben Johnson scandal in 1988; surprising that it's taken this long to happen.

News roundup, 16 April 2026

- Donald Trump is once again threatening to fire Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell for refusing to lower interest rates, even though it's far from clear that he has the authority to do that unilaterally. The regime is also pursuing a criminal investigation regarding alleged cost overruns for renovations at the central bank's headquarters; a judge has already given the legal opinion that the overruns are a mere pretext and that the government wants to intimidate the bank. The strange thing is, Powell's term is set to expire in May, although he would stay on until a successor is found. 

- Hospitalization rates for vaccine-preventable respiratory infections, including flu and RSV as well as COVID-19 and other conditions, have doubled since the start of the pandemic. Evidently enough people went down the antivax rabbit hole that they stopped getting the vaccinations that they previously went along with.

- To the surprise of nobody with any sense, speeding has increased in Ottawa school zones since the Ford government banned municipalities from using speed cameras.

- More information has emerged about Jeremy Frimer, the psychology professor who is suing the University of Winnipeg for allegedly giving him complex PTSD and the faculty union for not backing him up. It seems that Frimer made some highly questionable claims about race, intelligence, and crime; despite his protestations, the general consensus among most scientists is that human races are so ill-defined that it's pretty safe to assume that such claims are nonsense. As to what could have motivated to make such claims, well...

- Travis Patron, a Saskatchewan man who once served as the leader of a now defunct far right fringe party, has been charged with wilful promotion of hatred for some online posts. He has previous convictions for the same offense, as well as for assault, harassment, and impersonating a police officer.

- Remember the story a few years back about the programmer whose best friend was killed by a hit-and-run driver, so she trained a chatbot on all the texts he'd sent to her so she could still feel like she was talking to him? Whatever you think about whether that's psychologically healthy or not, at least she knew what was going on. A more recent case, though, is a bit more problematic. After a man died in a car accident last year, his family decided to keep the news from his mother, fearing that the shock would harm her health. So they got together all the audio and video they could find of him and trained an AI on it. The AI has brief conversations with her on screen but then apologizes saying that he has to go back to work because he's very busy, and that he will be sure to move back to her city to be with her once he has earned enough money. As some folks in this Reddit thread have remarked, this might be justifiable if she had severe dementia (the only thing worse than having to tell her that he'd died would be having to tell her that over and over again), but there's no mention of this in the article, and I can't see things going too well if the AI has some sort of glitch that reveals its true nature or if she finds out the truth in some other way.

News roundup, 2 March 2026

- Israel and the US launched an extensive attack on Iran beginning on Saturday morning, killing hundreds. The US Congress has yet to vote on the matter. The country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was among those killed in the attacks, as were at least 148 people at a school in the southern part of the country. Mark Carney says he supports at least one of the objectives of the attack, namely preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. It would have been nice of him to mention that this probably wouldn't be an issue were it not for Trump's tearing up Obama's deal with Iran during his first term, but he left that part out. Perhaps he's got an eye on the votes of the Iranian diaspora in the GTA and elsewhere, whose most visible members are very supportive of the attacks. In contrast, the NDP has condemned the attacks. Iran has responded with retaliatory strikes in Israel and the Gulf states; three US soldiers are among the dead. And British journalist Tariq Ali cites Iranian sources who allege that the Americans and Israelis are specifically targeting the homes of leftwing activists to get rid of the competition for their preferred choice for leader in the event that the current regime collapses. Meanwhile someone won over half a million dollars betting on Khameni's death on a prediction trading platform.

- The AI industry is funding at least two super PACs in the US, one that backs select Democratic candidates and one that backs select Republicans. They're running a whole bunch of ads for their preferred candidates, generally without mentioning AI at all.

- Manitoba's budget is set to be unveiled later this month. Premier Wab Kinew says that there are going to be some "big ticket" items included.

- A Thunder Bay police sergeant has been convicted of obstruction of justice and breach of trust as a result of an incident in 2020 when he entered a residence without a warrant and edited another officer's report.

- A Wisconsin man who bikejacked a Mexican immigrant, wounding him with a box cutter in the process, then posed as the victim to send letters threatening to kill Donald Trump in the hope that he would be deported (and thus presumably unable to testify against him in the bikejacking case). Fortunately, the victim was exonerated when it was shown that his English wasn't good enough for him to have written the letters. The perpetrator has now been sentenced to over 16 years in prison for the crime.

News roundup, 2 Sept 2025

- Donald Trump's pretext for deploying the National Guard in the District of Columbia was to deal with rampant crime. In actual fact, though, the troops have mostly been deployed in tourist areas and metro stations, not high crime neighbourhoods. There have, however, been a number of what locals believe to be police from out of town sent to those places, often making a big show of arresting people for petty offenses such as smoking pot or fare evasion.

- The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has identified 12 instances in which large supermarket chains have mislabeled foreign produce as Canadian. The CFIA has the power to levy fines of $15,000 per offense, however so far they have elected to simply say "please do not do this again".

- Yves Veggie Cuisine, a popular Canadian-founded brand of meat substitutes, is being shut down by its American owner, Hain Celestial Group. Hain claims that the sector has been declining for several years; it's possible that they want to take Linda McCartney Foods (which they also own) across the Atlantic and don't want Yves to compete with it. It also has to be admitted that while their veggie dogs are excellent, many of their other products such as veggie burgers are mediocre at best, especially when compared with things like Beyond Meat.

- The hamlet of Fort Providence, Northwest Territories is the latest to be evacuated as a result of wildfires, after a fire came within a kilometre of the community. Evacuees are being sent to the town of Hay River.

- Postal services of 25 countries have suspended outbound postal service to the US in response to tariffs. 

- US Customs and Border Patrol searched almost 15,000 cellphones at the Canadian border between April and June. In many cases the data from the phones was downloaded and archived for reasons unknown. One cybersecurity expert suggests that while you can always take a "burner phone", the very absence of data on the phone could itself be seen as a red flag. I guess the best choice would be a flip phone that you couldn't put apps on at all; maybe don't try that if you're young, though. Actually better still - don't visit the US at all.

- Two years ago, Taco Bell introduced AI-driven drive-thrus at over 500 US locations. They're now rethinking things after it failed to reduce errors or speed up service. Many report that their requests have confused the system; one guy managed to crash the entire system by ordering 18,000 cups of water.

- A teacher in Idaho has been forced to resign after refusing to remove a poster from her classroom. The poster had the slogan "Everyone is welcome" with outlines of hands of different skin tone; she was explicitly told that while the slogan itself would have been tolerable, showing the hands was not. Talk about saying the quiet part out loud...

- Residents of a trailer park on the outskirts of Winnipeg have been targeted with graffiti and with an anonymous letter sent to the trailer park's office warning residents of the park to stay out of the adjacent suburban neighbourhood. 

News roundup, 20 Aug 2025

- US Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra called Canada's second thoughts about whether to go all in on Lockheed-Martin's F-35 fighter are "an irritant that makes it harder to get to a [trade] agreement". More ominously, there are suggestions that Saab, say, might not be able to sell aircraft to Canada if the US doesn't want them to - many of the components in the Gripen fighter are American in origin, so in theory all they'd have to say is "Nice export permits you've got. It would be a shame if something happened to them". If I were in Mark Carney's position I'd be calling their bluff on that. If the Yanks were forced to show their true colours, they'd quickly find that their defense contractors are getting fewer and fewer new foreign orders for components.

- Some AI experts fear that the US power grid, in contrast to China's, is not robust enough to handle the massive energy demands of artificial intelligence. Fortunately, most of the massive amount of new generating capacity in China is solar; unfortunately, there's still a great deal of existing fossil fuel infrastructure in the country. Even more unfortunately, the current American regime will probably try to make up the difference by building new coal and natural gas plants (or nuclear, if we're lucky).

- A 40 year old man in Vernon, Connecticut had to be rescued from a tubular slide in a playground after becoming stuck inside. Authorities had to cut through the slide in order to get him out.

- The commissioner of Greater London's Metropolitan Police has made a specific order that beat cops assigned to the Notting Hill Carnival are not allowed to dance while on duty at the event. The official reason is a fear that dancing officers won't be sufficiently alert to signs of trouble, but Guardian columnist Hugh Muir suspects that the real reason is that someone might take a picture of an officer dancing, and if the police look too friendly and human, the rightwing press would see them as woke. 

- A Florida man has been convicted of second-degree murder after fatally stabbing his friend in a dispute over Donald Trump's financial acumen. The victim and the attacker were at a gathering at a residence in the small city of Arcadia. The victim had apparently made a remark about Trump having gone bankrupt (which, spoiler alert, he's done a few times) and in the ensuing dispute the other chap stabbed him with a kitchen knife.

- In other Florida news, a 71 year old woman in Wakulla County has been charged with several crimes after holding a family at gunpoint because she didn't believe the kids belonged to the father. The article doesn't say anything about the victims other than saying it was a father with two daughters under 13, but I'd wager donuts to dollars that the father is black and the daughters are sufficiently light-skinned to pass as white.

News roundup, 9 July 2025

- Two single-engine Cessna aircraft collided in midair in the Rural Municipality of Hanover, Manitoba, just outside Steinbach. Both pilots were killed.

- Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, is condemning Greece, Italy, and France for allowing Benjamin Netanyahu to fly through their airspace when as signatories to the Rome Statute they are obligated to hand wanted war crimes suspects over to the International Criminal Court. One can't help but contrast this with the time when several countries, including France and Italy, refused to allow Bolivian president Evo Morales' plane into their airspace because they believed (wrongly) that Edward Snowden was aboard.

- Toyota is considering possible "adjustments" at their plants in Cambridge and Woodstock if US tariffs aren't scaled back. It's a pretty good bet that any such "adjustments" will involve job losses.

- The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, a federal agency that investigates accidents involving hazardous substances, is the latest agency on the Trump regime's chopping block.

- A series of widely circulated TikTok videos of a white guy who says he can't get a job at Tim Hortons because all those dirty brown people are taking all the jobs has been found to be an AI-generated hoax. TikTok has now taken them down, not because of the racially charged claims but because of the undisclosed use of AI. Ironically, AI is likely to be a much bigger threat to the job market than immigration ever was.

- A man drove the wrong way up to the terminal at Milan's Bergamo airport, abandoned his car, then ran through a security door and threw himself into an engine of an Airbus A319 that was waiting on the taxiway. As suicide methods go, this is an expensive one; I do hope that the airline and/or their insurers aren't so callous as to go after the estate for the cost of repairs to the engine, but I'd be surprised if they don't at least consider it.

News roundup, 24 June 2025

- Iran has launched attacks on American bases in Iraq and Qatar in retaliation for the US attacks on their nuclear sites. They now say they want to avoid further escalation. There is speculation, however, that they could close off the Strait of Hormuz, which would have significant effects on the availability and price of fossil fuels as about 20% of oil and gas globally is sent through that strait. There were some reports indicating that there might be a ceasefire in the works but this remains in doubt and the two countries continue to exchange attacks despite Trump's admonitions not to.

- Ukrainian and Polish authorities say that they have uncovered a plot to assassinate Volodymyr Zelenskyy on a state visit to Poland. The plot allegedly involved a "deep cover" agent who was recruited decades ago. This follows the discovery of another such plot last year, which apparently involved insiders in Ukraine's State Guard Department.

- The state of emergency issued in Manitoba at the end of May due to wildfires has been lifted due to improvements in conditions and success in containing the fires; however the situation remains volatile with several uncontained fires still burning in the north.

- Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi will be entering the legislature after winning a seat in the constituency of Edmonton-Strathcona in one of three byelections held in the province yesterday. Gurtej Singh Brar also appears to have won Edmonton-Ellerslie for the NDP, while the UCP's Tara Sawyer has been elected in Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills.

- Following the police-involved death of a Saulteax teenager, Neil Stonechild in 1990, someone named Candis McLean self-published a book entitled When Police Become Prey which disputed the findings of an inquiry into Stonechild's death. McLean has just won a defamation lawsuit against University of Regina professor Michelle Stewart who called the book "racist garbage". The judge may have been bound by some sort of legal precedent to make that finding, however it's worth noting that instead of the $165,642 in damages sought by McLean, he awarded her only $6,450.

News roundup, 28 May 2025

- The city of Flin Flon, Manitoba is warning its residents to prepare for possible evacuation as a result of an out-of-control fire that started across the provincial border in Creighton, Saskatchewan. Further north, the town of Lynn Lake is already being evacuated due to a wildfire.

- There are so many signs, interpretive plaques, and the like in a typical national park that they may not be accurately tracked. The Trump regime, though, wants to do something about that - they're ordering all parks in the National Park Service to post signs advising visitors to report any information that is "critical of American history".

- Danielle Smith continues to court the deplorables. They are planning to set new requirements for school libraries by this fall limiting them to "age-appropriate" material, and will be holding public consultations to give some of Canada's worst people the opportunity to air their grievances about such things as the existence of LGBT* folks.

- Speaking of deplorables, here in Manitoba the perennial far-right candidate and antivaxxer Patrick Allard is trying to sue Fort Whyte NDP candidate Trudy Schroeder as well as the party for defamation over a comment Schroeder made during the campaign when she accused him of spouting "racist rhetoric". The folks in this Reddit thread have pointed out that he's posted stuff like this, and appeared in pictures like this, so I'm not sure he has such a good case.

- A bar owner in Quebec City posted a job ad for a barmaid, specifying that applicants who are "woke" or who support the Liberals or the centre-right CAQ need not apply and justifying this by saying "I don’t want someone who, during the pandemic, would have called the police if their neighbours had visitors". The ad has since been taken down.

- A former police chief from Gateway, Arkansas, who had been imprisoned following convictions for  murder and rape, has escaped from prison disguised as a guard and remains at large.

- Another day, another Thunder Bay police officer facing criminal charges.

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, 18 March 2025

- The second set of remains found at the Prairie Green Landfill have been identified as having been Marcedes Myran, another victim of serial killer Jeremy Skibicki. In other news, a woman from Buffalo Point First Nation who was severely injured in a hit and run in Winnipeg last Friday believes that she was hit intentionally - she says a van followed her as she walked down Osborne Street, then as she crossed the street she made eye contact with the driver, only for the van to strike her, reverse over her, and drive over her again.

- A poll by Leger Marketing suggests that Canadians' sense of national pride is increasing overall - but has decreased by 10% in Alberta. There is also a slight (2%) decline in Atlantic Canada; whether this is statistical noise is hard to say, since the poll was conducted online and doesn't give a margin of error. The Alberta thing, though, is probably real (and would probably be much worse if you didn't include Calgary and Edmonton).

- The Canadian government is seriously reconsidering whether it's a good idea to buy any more F-35 fighters beyond the 16 we've already paid for, especially given that we'd be dependent on the (possibly hostile) US for maintenance and software upgrades. Defence Minister Bill Blair is suggesting that the remainder of the fleet could be made up of the Saab Gripen; as a bonus, Saab has promised that assembly and maintenance of the aircraft could be done in Canada under license, potentially bringing a lot of jobs.

- Canadians crossed the US border by car 23% less last month than they did the previous February. Air travel dropped as well, albeit by only 2.4%. I suspect if you don't count non-discretionary (e.g. job related) crossings, the drops would be considerably higher.

- In his most recent "state of the city" address, Winnipeg mayor Scott Gillingham mused about ending remote and hybrid work. CUPE Local 500 has filed a grievance on the matter; the local's president Gord Delbridge points out the fact that remote work has been beneficial for employee retention and has not significantly harmed productivity. Gillingham says that bringing workers back into the office will help downtown businesses; no doubt that is the real motivation here, especially since a decline in the value of commercial real estate will be bad for the city's revenue stream. Delbridge, however, questions the benefit to downtown businesses; he says some of his members are vowing to boycott downtown businesses if forced back into the office.

- The Canadian woman who was detained in an immigration facility in Arizona has been released and has returned home to BC. Most of her fellow inmates are not so fortunate; to her credit, she recognizes that.

- The metaphor of the "dumpster fire" has been used to describe a number of things, including Trump's first term. Now, in Brandon we finally have something worthy of comparison to Trump's second term - a whole landfill is burning.

News roundup, 10 Oct 2024

- Hurricane Milton hit Florida last night as a Category 3 storm, with winds up over 160 km/h (86 kt, 100 mph). Fortunately the worst of it did not hit Tampa directly, hitting instead in the smaller city of Sarasota, 112 km to the south. Nonetheless, St Petersburg still got 41 centimetres (not millimetres) of rain. Several fatalities have been reported from the hurricane and spin-off tornadoes, and power is out for more than 3 million people.

- Federal Public Services and Procurement Minister Jean-Yves Duclos says the Trudeau government is "seriously considering" a high speed option for the proposed high frequency rail link between Toronto and Quebec City. Certainly this is a good idea, but it's a bit late in the game to be doing something like this given that they've been in power since 2015 and are almost certain to be replaced next fall by the Poilievre Conservatives, who will likely cancel the project.

- The former clerk of Mesa County, Colorado has been sentenced to 9 years in prison for her role in a breach in the security of the county's electoral system. Following the sentencing, staff at the county courthouse have reported being threatened by members of the public.

- The landlord who evicted dozens of people from his apartment complex in Winnipeg's North End earlier this year has been fined $9,000. This is apparently the largest fine ever issued by the Residential Tenancies Branch; apparently all previous fines for this sort of thing add up to a total of $28,000. Nonetheless, it's probably pretty much a rounding error for the landlord. Current legislation only allows a fine of $1,000 for each tenant who actually comes forward. And according to Street Links, who had made the arrangements to house several previously homeless people in the building, several of those people are now back on the street following the eviction, and thus probably have bigger things on their mind than talking to authorities.

- A 10 year old boy in the Montreal suburb of Longueuil was severely scalded when boiling water was poured over him. A woman in her 40s has been arrested. The accused apparently claimed that the boy had been knocking on her door as a prank for "the last three years"; according to the boy's family they haven't even lived in the area for that long. Most likely racism as well as psychiatric factors played a role here.

- A researcher at the University of Michigan proposes that autonomous vehicles be required to take a national driving test in order to be certified for road use. Seems eminently reasonable, even if the Silicon Valley boys think rules cramp their style.

- The Trump Bible (which Oklahoma was originally going to make required reading in state schools before a backlash forced them to amend the requirements to allow other editions) was printed in China. That's awkward...

News roundup, 26 July 2024

- An estimated 30-50% of the structures in Jasper have been burned in the wildfire that hit the town yesterday. Surprisingly one of the videos embedded in that article shows that parts of the town survived with no apparent damage; on the other hand the iconic Jasper Park Lodge has been damaged, although the main building is apparently intact. While the destroyed parts of the town will doubtless be rebuilt, some on this Reddit thread fear that when it does come back it will be more like Banff than like the Jasper they knew and loved. One thing that should definitely be considered, though, is replanting burned areas of the park with different tree species, in particular broad-leaved trees from further south that are both less flammable and better adapted to a warmer climate. This would probably be at odds with Parks Canada's philosophy, because they'd doubtless like to bring the park back to the way it was before, but primeval conditions are probably gone irrevocably no matter what, so better to plant something that's good for the longevity of the park in the long term (not to mention the safety of the people living in Jasper itself).

- In California, the state's largest wildfire so far this year has been attributed to someone pushing a burning car into a gully. The fire has burned more than 500 km² near the city of Chico in the Central Valley. An arrest has been made but there is no information about the suspect or their motives so far.

- The Democrats will be holding a virtual vote on the presidential nomination as soon as Aug 1. Candidates will have until July 27 to declare their candidacy. A convention will still be held later in August, but it will be symbolic only. This is necessary to minimize the risk of the nominee being kept of the ballot in some states.

- Saboteurs damaged high speed rail infrastructure at multiple locations in rural France in what is believed to be an attempt to disrupt the opening of the Olympics. Many high-speed routes are out of service, and the situation is not expected to be fixed until early next week.

- While Norway is a leader in the reduction of fossil fuels at home, they seem to be betting on the rest of the world continuing to burn them. They continue to issue new licenses for fossil fuel exploration; they argue, though, that if they don't drill someone else will anyway.

- The mayor of Wasaga Beach, Ontario is addressing rumours of people defecating on the beach. According to the mayor, the town has seen no actual evidence of this occurring; I suspect that the folks in this Reddit thread are correct in saying that the stories are being circulated by far-right extremists trying to play up stereotypes of immigrants.

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...

Details of accused gunman in Tucson rampage slowly emerge

Definitely some serious issues here:

Loughner lives with his parents about a five-minute drive from the shootings, in a middle-class neighbourhood lined with desert landscaping and palm trees. Sheriff’s deputies blocked off much of the street Sunday.

Neighbours said Loughner kept to himself and was often seen walking his dog, almost always wearing a hooded sweat shirt and listening to his iPod.

His high school friends said they fell out of touch with Loughner and last spoke to him around March, when one of them was going to set up some bottles in the desert for target practice and Loughner suggested he might come along. It was unusual — Loughner hadn’t expressed an interest in guns before — and his increasingly confrontational behaviour was pushing them apart. He would send nonsensical text messages, but also break off contact for weeks on end.

“We just started getting sketched out about him,” the friend said. It was the first time he’d felt that way.

Around the same time, Loughner’s behaviour also began to worry officials at Pima Community College, where Loughner began attending classes in 2005, the school said in a release.

Between February and September, Loughner “had five contacts with PCC police for classroom and library disruptions,” the statement said. He was suspended in September 2010 after college police discovered a YouTube video in which Loughner claimed the college was illegal according to the U.S. Constitution. He withdrew voluntarily the following month, and was told he could return only if, among other things, a mental health professional agreed he did not present a danger, the school said.

From the Star. Politically, he seems a bit confused as well:

Mistrust of government was Loughner’s defining conviction, the friends said. He believed the U.S. government was behind the Sept. 11 attacks, and worried that governments were manoeuvring to create a unified monetary system (“a New World Order currency” one friend said) so that social elites and bureaucrats could control the rest of the world.

On his YouTube page, he listed among his favourite books “Animal Farm” and “Brave New World” — two novels about how authorities control the masses. Other books in the wide-ranging list included “Mein Kampf,” “The Communist Manifesto,” “Peter Pan” and Aesop’s Fables.

The mere fact that The Communist Manifesto, Mein Kampf, and Animal Farm are all among his favourite books suggests that he doesn't fully understand any of those works. On the other hand, his views on monetary policy seem to be in line with a lot of the teabaggers. There are also suggestions that he thinks he's Earl Turner. And there are other odd things; he's an ardent atheist (a decidedly un-teabagger-like trait, incidentally), but evidently also a pro-lifer:

When other students, always seated, read their poems, Coorough said Loughner “would laugh at things that you wouldn’t laugh at.” After one woman read a poem about abortion, “he was turning all shades of red and laughing,” and said, “Wow, she’s just like a terrorist, she killed a baby,” Coorough said.

Given that one of the people he's accused of killing was a nine year old girl, there's more than a little irony in that.

The degeneration of America continues

Matt Tiabbi in Rolling Stone (h/t oddlots in this iTulip thread) has some scary things to report:

In fact if you follow Fox News and the Limbaugh/Hannity afternoon radio crew, this summer’s blowout has almost seemed like an intentional echo of the notorious Radio Rwanda broadcasts “warning” Hutus that they were about to be attacked and killed by conspiring Tutsis, broadcasts that led to massacres of Tutsis by Hutus acting in “self-defense.” A sample of some of the stuff we’ve seen and heard on the air this year:

• On July 12, Glenn Beck implied that the Obama government was going to aid the New Black Panther Party in starting a race war, with the ultimate aim of killing white babies. "They want a race war. We must be peaceful people. They are going to poke, and poke, and poke, and our government is going to stand by and let them do it." He also said that "we must take the role of Martin Luther King, because I do not believe that Martin Luther King believed in, 'Kill all white babies.'"
• CNN contributor and Redstate.com writer Erick Erickson, on the Panther mess: "Republican candidates nationwide should seize on this issue. The Democrats are giving a pass to radicals who advocate killing white kids in the name of racial justice and who try to block voters from the polls."
• On July 6, the Washington Times columnist J. Christian Adams wrote an editorial insisting that "top [Obama] appointees have allowed and even encouraged race-based enforcement as either tacit or open policy," marking one of what would become many assertions by commentators that the Obama administration was no longer interested in protecting the rights of white people. "The Bush Civil Rights Division was willing to protect all Americans from racial discrimination,” Adams wrote. “During the Obama years, the Holder years, only some Americans will be protected."
• July 12: Rush Limbaugh says Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder “protect and represent” the New Black Panther party.
• July 28: Rush says Supreme Court decision on 1070 strips Arizonans of their rights to defend themselves against an “invasion”: "I guess the judge is saying it's not in the public interest for Arizona to try to defend itself from an invasion. I don't know how you look at this with any sort of common sense and come to the ruling this woman came to.” That same day, Rush says this: "Muslim terrorists are going to have a field day in Arizona. You cannot ask them where they're from. You cannot even act like we know where they're from. You cannot ask them for their papers. We can ask you for yours. Not them."
• July 29: The Washington Times asks “Should Arizona Secede?” and says the Supreme Court "is unilaterally disarming the people of Arizona in the face of a dangerous enemy” with the aim of creating a “socialist superstate.” The paper writes: "The choice is becoming starkly apparent: devolution or dissolution."
• July 29, Fox and Friends host Steve Doocy continues the Radio Rwanda theme, saying, "If the feds won't protect the people and Governor Brewer can't protect her citizens, what are the people of Arizona supposed to do?"

There’s nothing in the world more tired than a progressive blogger like me flipping out over the latest idiocies emanating from the Fox News crowd. But this summer’s media hate-fest is different than anything we’ve seen before. What we’re watching is a calculated campaign to demonize blacks, Mexicans, and gays and convince a plurality of economically-depressed white voters that they are under imminent legal and perhaps even physical attack by a conspiracy of leftist nonwhites. They’re telling these people that their government is illegitimate and criminal and unironically urging secession and revolution.

This is scary stuff, because that's exactly how fascism gets going. Whether this is as unprecedented as Tiabbi suggests isn't clear; I'm told it was pretty crazy in the early 1960s too. But this could be extremely dangerous. Stories like this are likely to become more common, for instance... and that's nothing compared to what will happen if too many of these people win political office.

I can't believe I'm about to defend this guy

A pastor has gotten himself arrested for protesting the mascot of the school's sports teams (the Demons, in case you were wondering). Now to me it sounds like a pretty darn silly thing to protest, but should it be illegal?

A minister who was arrested outside a Georgia high school for disorderly conduct says he was speaking out against the school's evil mascot.

Pastor Donald Crosby told CBS affiliate WMAZ he was "standing up for Jesus" when he was arrested Monday outside the Warner Robins school, and he'd do it again.

Now to be fair, there may be other aspects of the story that weren't reported. But they do report this:

"Officers found the group did not possess a picketing permit," the release says.

"On several occasions, offers asked Crosby to leave the premises. He refused to comply with officers and was arrested. The remaining people dispersed in an orderly fashion," police said.

Now I'm pretty sure that if he'd been harassing people that would have been mentioned in the story. But it seems the only thing they could get him on was the fact that he didn't have a licence to picket. You need a licence to do that in Georgia? What's next -- will you need to get a blogging licence? This goes well beyond the ravings of an overzealous backwoods preacher; it is a matter of putting a serious chill on free speech, and should not be allowed to stand. And if he gets good legal representation, it probably won't; it sounds as unconstitutional as hell.

Edited to add: There's more on the case here. Apparently it's the city of Warner Robins that requires a picketing permit, not the state. And that article also has a photo, which raises yet another question -- would they have bothered him if he were white?

Rob Ford may just have saved Toronto from himself

At least I hope most people don't vote for him after this:

Rob Ford’s long-held belief in traditional marriage has exploded into a campaign issue now that he has endorsed the views of a fundamentalist Christian pastor who suggested online that same-sex marriage could “dismantle” a “healthy democratic civilization.”

“We’re together. We have the same thoughts,” Mr. Ford said at a news conference with Pastor Wendell Brereton, who abandoned his candidacy for mayor to run for council and endorse Mr. Ford.

From the Globe. This is rather interesting; Ford has come out on top in some polls (though not all apparently) but this could have a rather dramatic effect. Then again, consider what's already public about him:

In 2002, Ford called fellow Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti, who is also running for mayor, "a scammer" and "Gino-boy" in reference to his Italian heritage.

In 2003, he wanted Toronto declared a "refugee-free zone" and called council's decision to ban the use of pesticides a sign of "dictatorship." The following year he said the city's bylaw to protect trees "is communism, if you ask me."

In 2005, he called Councillor Gloria Lindsay Luby a "waste of skin." He once suggested that "it's their own fault" if cyclists are killed in traffic accidents.

In 2006, he was ejected from the Air Canada Centre for being drunk and verbally abusing fans at a Maple Leafs game, calling them "communist bastards." Later, Ford denied he was even at the game, but subsequently admitted he lied, saying "I'm going through a few personal problems."

Also in 2006, he fought against a $1.5 million AIDs prevention program, claiming he didn't understand why more women were becoming AIDS patients, adding "Maybe they're sleeping with bisexual men."

In 2008, he claimed "Oriental people work like dogs... They're slowly taking over." He later said he meant it as a compliment, but apologized anyway. Also that year, he was arrested and charged with assault and threatening death, but the charges were later dropped.

From the Star. The fact that all this is out there and he's still popular is a bit worrisome. Linda Deibel (also in the Star) compares him to the teabaggers, and she's not far off. And in Etobicoke they seem to actually like the guy.