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, 18 Aug 2025

- The IDF has reportedly created a "legitimization cell", tasked with trying to find whatever tenuous connections it can find between Hamas and journalists working in Gaza. That way, when they kill said journalists, they can present this "evidence" as a way of claiming self-defense.

- California, unlike most states, has an independent electoral commission to draw district boundaries. However, Governor Gavin Newsom is prepared to override the commission for seats in the House of Representatives if other states, such as Texas, go ahead with highly gerrymandered districts for their own states. Public opinion in California opposes this, and partisan redistricting has been shown to erode confidence in democracy, but it might be the best chance the Democrats have of regaining control of the House.

- The Carney government attempted to order striking Air Canada flight attendants back to work over the weekend, invoking Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code to order binding arbitration. The union, however, is defying the order, essentially calling the government's bluff. It definitely seems like a questionable order; being able to hop on a plane to fly wherever you like is not an essential service by any reasonable standards.

- Back in the 1970s, uneasiness about the safety of nuclear fission energy led Oregon's liberal legislators to introduce legislation to give the public more say over the location of power plants. Unfortunately this has now backfired; rightwing activists are using the legislation to hold up the construction of wind farms and upgrades to transmission lines.

- The Winnipeg Humane Society was kicked out of the Hanover Ag Fair because they had a display with a papier mâché pig. The display was meant to show people the kind of conditions actual pigs are typically kept in, but the fair's organizers were not amused. They have said little about the reason for kicking the WHS out other than saying that the display was not what they had expected. 

News roundup, 20 Aug 2024

- The 1972 report The Limits to Growth, commissioned by the Club of Rome, predicted that unfettered economic growth without sufficient regard for the environment would eventually lead to "the total stagnation of industrial growth and a significant decline in human welfare". Unfortunately, the report's predictions have been holding up pretty well so far.

- Justin Trudeau has appointed two new Senators to fill vacancies in the upper house, including journalist Charles Adler. The latter pick is not going over well with the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, who are requesting that the appointment be rescinded owing to on-air comments he made about First Nations leaders in 1999 while a broadcaster for CJOB, for which the AMC filed a formal complaint with the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council. Even Dan Vandal, a member of Trudeau's cabinet, expressed concerns about the appointment. Admittedly, Adler says that his political views have moderated in recent years and that he no longer considers himself a conservative, though I don't know if he has ever apologized for the specific comments he made in 1999.

- The controversy over Plan 20-50, the regional growth plan for the Winnipeg metro area, is not limited to the lunatic fringe. The City of Selkirk, the Town of Niverville and the RMs of St. Andrews, East St. Paul, and Headingley are expressing concerns about the plan, fearing a loss of control over local land-use decisions. Those concerns are certainly easier to sympathize with than the absurd idea that this is some sinister plot to lock people into their neighbourhoods, but it has to be noted that some land use decisions made by suburban and exurban municipalities have a significant effect on their neighbours. In particular, when they build huge suburban developments to house people who want to benefit from the jobs in Winnipeg and subject the city to the increased traffic and the resulting wear and tear on the streets, but don't want to pay taxes to support the city's people and infrastructure, their land use decisions should not be solely their decision.

- Ontario premier Doug Ford, who a few years ago cancelled over $230 million worth of wind power contracts in order to satisfy his rural base, has changed his tune somewhat; his government has presented plans to more than double the province's current wind power installations by 2034. Ford may be a scumbag, but he's no fool, and he knows he has to win some of the non-crazy vote in order to secure reelection.

- Efforts to control pollution from plastics have lead to negotiations for a global treaty on the issue. The negotiations began earlier this year; while some countries (among them Canada, the EU, South Korea, Rwanda, and Peru) want a global cap on production, other countries (such as Saudi Arabia, China, Russia, and until recently the US) have opposed this, saying that the issue should be managed solely by recycling more. However, the Americans, perhaps not wanting to be in such company, seem to be changing their tune and have expressed willingness to impose a cap.

- When Dr. Kanokporn Tangsuan, went to a restaurant at Walt Disney World with her husband and her mother-in-law last year, they warned staff of her serious food allergies and asked repeatedly for them to be accommodated. Unfortunately, whatever accommodations were made weren't enough - she suffered a severe allergic reaction and died shortly afterwards. Her husband launched a lawsuit, and Disney attempted to have the suit dismissed on the grounds that when he clicked on the terms and conditions of his Disney+ account years previously, he had agreed to binding arbitration for "any dispute between you and us, except for small claims". Of course, once it hit the news clearer heads prevailed in Duckburg and they withdrew the request.

- San Francisco's city attorney's office has filed a motion in a state court to shut down 16 websites that "nudify" pictures of people. The sites use AI that is trained using porn, reportly including child porn. In a reasonable world that alone should be grounds for taking action, though I don't know the fine-grained legalities of that, especially in a country whose courts often label such activities as "speech" that is protected by free speech laws.

Big Oil prepared to sue to stop offshore wind farms

They claim a few turbines would be disruptive to their operations:

The warning over legal action came from trade body Oil and Gas UK. The government is currently consulting on national policy statements, which set out how the UK's ambitious renewable energy targets will be met, with offshore wind turbines a key factor. In its submission, Oil and Gas UK said the policy statements did not take account of the way offshore wind farms could impede mobile drilling rigs, disrupt helicopter flights and get in the way of pipelines and underwater equipment.

From the Guardian. What do you think their real reason is?

Could a coat of paint make wind turbines safer for wildlife?

Opponents of wind turbines often point to reports that they are responsible for significant mortality among some animals, especially birds and bats. There's controversy over the accuracy and significance of those reports, but it's certainly worth looking at ways of reducing wind farms' impact on wildlife. Which makes this a valuable discovery:

A study has revealed that a wind turbine's colour affects how many insects it attracts, shedding more light on why the turbines occasionally kill bats and birds.

Scientists say that turbines, most commonly painted white or grey, draw in insects. These then lure bats and birds - as they pursue their prey - into the path of the turbine blades.

Support for the idea comes from another study showing that bats are most often killed by turbines at night and in summer, when insects are most abundant.

"It had been speculated that insects may be attracted to turbine structures for some reason and this then could attract insectivorous species, such as birds and bats, to forage in the vicinity," said PhD student Chloe Long of Loughborough University, UK.

However, she added, "no other study has looked in detail at what specific insect species might be attracted to turbine installations or why".

So Miss Long and her Loughborough colleagues, Dr James Flint and Dr Paul Lepper, conducted the first empirical study of insect attraction to wind turbines, the results of which are published in the European Journal of Wildlife Research.

From the BBC. Apparently painting the turbines purple would be the best way to minimize the number of insects attracted to them.

Construction begins on St. Joseph wind farm

Not without hurdles, but it's underway:

Construction has started on the St. Joseph Wind Farm after Manitoba Hydro announced they would loan Pattern Energy $260 million towards the $345 million project.

After years of delays and changes to the original plan, Pattern Energy will have 60 Siemens SWT-2.3 MW turbines producing 138 MW in operation by Christmas of this year.

"These things don't generally take more than six to 12 months to build," Colin Edwards, senior developer Canada said.

The construction may be quick but getting there was not. In 2007 the call for submissions was put out by Manitoba Hydro. In November 2008, they announced they would go with a bid by Babcock and Brown Canada to build a 300 MW wind farm. That deal never materialized after their Australian parent company faced financial distress. The North American wind division was turned into Pattern Energy, with many of the same names that were involved in the first proposal.

From the Altona Red River Valley Echo. Not a moment too soon -- we're going to need a lot more of this soon, especially once the flow rates of the Assiniboine, Saskatchewan, and Churchill rivers start to decline as the glaciers on the Rockies vanish. The more wind and solar capacity we have the better, because when it's producing power it will be possible to reduce the flow rate through the control structure at Jenpeg, thus keeping Lake Winnipeg as full as possible.

'Explosive' at California airport found to be honey

Oops:

LOS ANGELES, Jan 5 (Reuters) - Authorities shut down a California airport on Tuesday after a suspicious amber liquid in a passenger's bag tested positive for explosives -- only to ultimately determine that the substance was honey.

Francisco Ramirez, a 31-year-old gardener who had been visiting family in the central California city of Bakersfield, was allowed to return home to Milwaukee.

"The substances in the bottles did turn out to be honey. They tested negative for all explosives and narcotics. It is nothing but honey," FBI spokesman Steve Dupre told Reuters.

Source (h/t GRG55 in this iTulip thread). What's particularly interesting about this case, though, is the following:

When the bottles were opened, two of the screeners smelled a strong chemical odor, complained of nausea and were rushed to a local hospital, where they treated and released, Kern County Sheriff's spokesman Michael Whorf said.

The placebo effect is a powerful thing. I've also heard a story (for which I have yet to find confirmation, mind you) of people in Europe complaining about a cell tower causing headaches and such, not realizing that it wasn't yet operational. (If anyone can confirm or deny this story, please let me know in the comments!) For these reasons I also have to wonder about those reports of people getting funny sick feelings around wind turbines, especially with all the FUD surrounding this subject.

George Monbiot takes on Shaun Spiers on wind farms

Here's a nice interview where Monbiot corners Spiers, the head of the "Campaign to Protect Rural England", regarding that organization's focus on wind farms as a "blight on the landscape" even as it ignores open pit coal mining.