News roundup, 23 March 2026

- An Air Canada CRJ-900 collided with a vehicle on the runway while landing at New York's LaGuardia Airport on Sunday night. The pilots were killed while 41 people were injured, nine of them seriously enough to remain in hospital as of this morning. There are reports that a controller cleared the vehicle to cross the runway, then abruptly tried to cancel the clearance before the collision.

- Iran is warning that if the US goes ahead with threats to target the country's power plants, there will be retaliatory strikes on water and energy infrastructure across the Middle East and that the Strait of Hormuz will be completely closed until Iran's power plants are rebuilt.

- South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham is calling on Donald Trump to close bases in countries that won't allow them to be used in the attack on Iran.

- The International Energy Agency is recommending several measures for governments to take in order to deal with potential fuel shortages as a result of the war in Iran. These measures include lowering highway speed limits, allowing people to work from home where possible, and encouraging public transit use. The UK government is considering several of these measures, including reducing speed limits and even limiting where and when people can drive. Notably, there seems to be particular resistance to reinstating work from home; a representative of large British companies cited COVID-related "workplace friction between shopfloor staff and white-collar colleagues who could work remotely" as a reason for not wanting to allow it. Meanwhile China is expecting fewer disruptions than most countries, thanks to years of efforts to electrify transportation and build up strategic fuel reserves.

- Alberta separatists gathering signatures for an independence referendum have reportedly been claiming to be affiliated with Elections Alberta. They've also been accused of using food and family entertainment to induce people to attend signature-gathering events, which is illegal.

- The Socialist Party's Emmanuel Grégoire has won Paris' mayoralty race, beating rightwing candidate Rachida Dati in a runoff. Grégoire previously served as deputy mayor under outgoing mayor Anne Hidalgo. This is reassuring news to those who want to see Paris' recent transformation continue. The left also scored wins in other major cities but lost out to the far right in smaller communities. The right's failure to gain traction in big cities despite the best efforts of a billionaire donor is reassuring.

- A Georgia woman has been charged with murder after taking abortion drugs to terminate her pregnancy.

- A Polish court has ruled that the country must recognize the union between two Polish men who married in Germany. The rightwing Law and Justice party (PiS) is apoplectic at the ruling, with the party's parliamentary leader Mariusz Błaszczak calling it "an attack on the family". The party will be filing an appeal with the country's Constitutional Tribunal.

The day after

Well, as you're no doubt aware, the election didn't go the way I expected. For that matter, it didn't go the way most other people expected, including some of the winning candidates. And indeed there are some good aspects to what happened; while part of me would have loved to see the NDP jump from fourth place to government in one fell swoop, it's probably better that these rookie MPs get the chance to learn the ropes in opposition before they take office (I suspect that was a contributing factor to the troubles of the Rae government in Ontario back in the day). I'm not unhappy to see Elizabeth May in the House either, for that matter.

But while this was a hugely successful election for the NDP, it is definitely a Pyrrhic victory, thanks to the Conservative majority. What's odd, though, is the way things played out in the final day or so of the campaign. Nearly all the polls put the Cons in the mid to high thirties, while the NDP's share of the vote is shown as pretty close to what they actually got. So what gave the Cons the boost into majority territory?

It sounds crazy, but one possibility that comes to my mind is the death of Osama bin Laden. Some people seem to see the killing as a vindication of the Afghan war, and if enough people who were right-leaning but had a bad feeling about our involvement in said war had their (obviously limited) minds changed by this, it could have made the difference. Pretty pathetic, but then a lot of Canadian voters are pretty pathetic.

What can we expect now? The Cons claim that they're not going to introduce radical changes... and maybe the government itself won't, but I bet that there will be a lot of private members' bills reopening the abortion and marriage debates. Most of them won't make it far enough to be debated, but those that do get debated have an excellent chance of passing.

And as bad as that would be, there are worse things that could happen. At least if abortion or same-sex marriage is banned it will be easy enough for a future government to reverse the decision. Indeed, if they use the notwithstanding clause to avoid constitutional challenges, such a law would automatically be invalidated unless renewed. On the other hand, if they abolish the Canadian Wheat Board, for instance, NAFTA will likely preclude reversing such a move; it will be gone forever. And that is a bad thing.

Teabaggers -- the paranoia continues

Exhibit A is Dan Maes, who hopes to be governor of Colorado. He thinks bike share programs are a UN plot:

Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes is warning voters that Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper's policies, particularly his efforts to boost bike riding, are "converting Denver into a United Nations community."

"This is all very well-disguised, but it will be exposed," Maes told about 50 supporters who showed up at a campaign rally last week in Centennial.

Maes said in a later interview that he once thought the mayor's efforts to promote cycling and other environmental initiatives were harmless and well-meaning. Now he realizes "that's exactly the attitude they want you to have."

"This is bigger than it looks like on the surface, and it could threaten our personal freedoms," Maes said.

He added: "These aren't just warm, fuzzy ideas from the mayor. These are very specific strategies that are dictated to us by this United Nations program that mayors have signed on to."

From the Denver Post. Happily, virtually every comment that I read on that story thought Maes' position to be ridiculous.

Exhibit B is an organization called the Family Research Council (and yes, this is one book that you can judge by its cover). Not surprisingly, they aren't at all happy to hear that their beloved Proposition 8 runs afoul of their supposedly even more beloved Constitution. As Ken at Popehat points out, the judge in the case, Vaughn Walker, is a longtime Republican, appointed by Reagan against the will of liberal Democrats. So when he doesn't do what conservatives think he should do, they have a novel explanation:

It turns out that the Judge behind Proposition 8′s undoing was just biding his time until he could unleash his ultimate agenda: decimating marriages that have defined civilization since the beginning of time.

Straight from the horse's mouth, via the above linked Popehat post. A sinister sleeper agent, presumably put there by Satan, the Communists, the Freemasons, the Elders of Zion, lizards from outer space, or some combination thereof, for the sole purpose of destroying the institution of marriage. I guess it makes sense to somebody...

The night the grow lights came on in Massachusetts

Lost in the shuffle in the coverage of Obama's victory (either a squeaker or a landslide, depending on whether you're counting popular vote or electoral college votes) is the fact that virtually every US election is accompanied by numerous referenda on various issues. In Massachusetts, and Michigan, the term could be "reeferendum":

Michigan became the 13th state to legalise marijuana for medical use, while Massachusetts decriminalised possession of one ounce or less of the substance, making the offence punishable with a citation and a $100 fine.

"Tonight's results represent a sea change," said Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project, which backed the Massachusetts and Michigan ballot proposals. "Voters have spectacularly rejected eight years of the most intense government war on marijuana since the days of 'Reefer Madness.'"

Not every ballot initiative was so positive, of course. Final results are still pending, but it's looking like California may have the ignominious distinction of becoming the first US state to ban same-sex marriage after it was legal. Probably supported by folks whose preachers told them that they'd burn in hell if they voted No. Oh well, that's how America works, I guess.

Incidentally, remember those "militia" organizations that were so prominent during the Clinton years and faded into the background during the last eight years? (I use quotes around the word "militia" because really, as Chomsky points out, militias are raised by states; these are really private armies, or in some cases actual terrorists). In any case, expect to see these folks being a lot more visible in the next little while, because most of them are not going to be happy with Obama's win at all.

And bugsybrown reminds us that Bush will still be president for 76 more days from today, which gives him time to do an awful lot of damage.