News roundup, 21 Aug 2023

- On the wildfire front, at least 50 structures are now known to have been destroyed in West Kelowna, but the worst hit areas of the city have yet to be surveyed in detail. Meanwhile, in the Shuswap area critical firefighting equipment has been stolen. Yellowknife remains intact for the time being but is still under threat.

- The displacement of thousands of people is creating fears about how addictions will be managed among the evacuees, due to the sharp increase in demand for methadone and similar medications in the places where people are being sent.

- As with other places that have experienced natural disasters recently, the insurance industry is warning that risks are increasing in Canada. Expect premiums to increase accordingly.

- Meanwhile Californians are still tallying the damage from floods as a result of Tropical Storm Hilary.

- On the positive side, Saudi Arabia is enlisting a Dutch company to build greenhouses to improve food security. Considerably less positive is the measures they've been taking to avoid having to share their food with migrants; unfortunately while they may be more proactive than some countries on this matter, they are unlikely to be the only rich country to do this in the future.

- Here's a map of areas expected to be unsuitable for human habitation by the end of this century, complete with the populations expected to be affected. Expect this to generate a lot more migrants in the future, which in turn will inspire more countries to follow the Saudis' example.

- A bylaw in Montreal that was introduced two years ago requires developers to include social, family and, in some places, affordable housing units to any new projects larger than 4,843ft², or else either pay a fine or surrender property to the city. To date, every single developer has chosen to pay up rather than include the affordable housing Five of them actually surrendered property rather than do it. Sounds like a loophole that needs to be closed.

- The Law Society of Manitoba has banned two Alberta-based lawyers from practising in the province following the revelation that they hired a private investigator to spy on a judge who was hearing a case involving COVID-19 public health orders. One of them also faces criminal charges.

- AI is becoming part of the culture wars, as rightwingers rail against any attempts to make AIs more "woke". No surprise that Musk is at the forefront of this. Meanwhile, some are suggesting that it may be necessary to nationalize the industry in order to keep it under democratic control, something which I'm all for but which may be difficult.

- A test run is being conducted for a partially sail powered cargo ship. More of this, please.

- Police have seized a cache of Molotov cocktails from an apartment in Winnipeg's North End. I can't see a good reason for the average person to be accumulating these.

- While much of the world is experiencing high inflation, China is now facing the opposite problem.

- The Republican party is now divided on the issue of support for Israel. While this might seem to be a good thing, given the nature of modern Republicans it's likely that those opposed to it are opposed for the wrong reasons.

- Apparently the Wagner Group's leader Yevgeny Prigozhin is hiding out somewhere in Africa. He's apparently still trying to recruit new members too.

- A store owner in California has been shot to death, apparently by someone who objected to the Pride flag displayed at her business.

News roundup, 20 Aug 2023

- The wildfires in BC and the Northwest Territories continue to wreak havoc. Meta's blocking of news continues to draw criticism for the delayed warning that has resulted; meanwhile the fires have economic and psychological impacts well beyond the areas actually burned.

- Speaking of wildfires, it seems that those in Maui have been greatly worsened by the drying up of the area by big corporations taking most of the water for golf courses and the like. 

- The Manitoba NDP is promising rebates of up to $4,000 for purchasers of electric vehicles. A step in the right direction.

- Safe consumption sites for hard drugs unquestionably save lives, but some report collateral damage in the surrounding neighbourhoods. Those who want them to continue to save lives will need to do something about that if the sites are to continue to operate, for the simple reason that the people who benefit from them are less likely to vote than the people who live nearby.

- Some activists are challenging the constitutionality of the first-past-the-post electoral system. I wish them luck.

- The Globe is challenging the view that people who work from home are more productive than those who return to the office, citing a study that reports a modest decrease in productivity when working from home. Now I suppose it's possible that this is the case, but even if it is, there are potentially countervailing advantages, not to the businesses as such but to humanity as a whole - the biggest one being less pollution from transportation. In cases like this you have to ask whether productivity is the be all and end all. And a funny thing about the Globe article - the phrase "commercial real estate" doesn't appear once, even though many people (myself included) think that's the real reason for the push back to the office.

- Even as there's been a big victory for the climate in a Montana court, the feds are fighting tooth and nail against a similar case at the federal level. Biden may be worlds better than the Republicans, but he doesn't look too good when he says, and his administration does, stuff like this.

- A candidate for the Republican presidential nomination has just said the quiet part out loud, suggesting that the voting age should be raised to 25 to keep those damn lefty kids from having an influence on election outcomes. Of course he has little chance of winning, and even less chance of getting through the necessary constitutional amendments, but it shows where their heads are at.

- The livestock lobby is working furiously to maintain and enhance their preferential treatment by governments over greener and more humane means of producing protein. The cynic in me thinks that the best hope of overcoming this would be for some rogue geneticist to engineer a virus with a long incubation period, which kills cattle and turns other animals, including humans, into asymptomatic carriers. Just putting that out there for you CRISPR-savvy greenies out there.

- Hugh Segal has died. He was one of an almost extinct breed of Conservative - one that you could respectfully disagree with, and often agree with (such as his championing of a basic income). Unfortunately there are few today like that.

- Israeli police are being accused of branding the Star of David on the cheek of a Palestinian prisoner. Now I'm no expert, but I don't think this meets internationally accepted standards of human rights.

News roundup, 18 Aug 2023

- When a city is being evacuated, the demand for airline tickets out of there is what economists call "inelastic". Some report that the airlines are taking advantage of this in Yellowknife. Meanwhile in BC, around 2500 people are being evacuated in the Kelowna area, and a bunch of people needed to be rescued from a lodge. And some say that Facebook/Meta's blocking of news has led to some people not getting warnings as quickly.

- Meanwhile, in Maui the head of the county's emergency management agency has resigned following criticism of his failure to raise the alarm. In line with tradition, though, he says it's for "health reasons". To be fair, his explanation for not using the alarms makes some sense; the alarms were put in place to warn of tsunamis, not wildfires, and he feared that if they sounded people would move away from the ocean and towards the fire.

- Beyond the death toll (111 and counting), the cultural damage from the fire could be immense. Better get used to it; over the coming decades this will happen to a lot of cultures as the environment in which they developed changes beyond recognition.

- Interestingly, evidence is now coming up for human-made fires contributing to the extinction of North American megafauna.

- Toronto is looking at a municipal sales tax. Not necessarily a bad idea, but here's a thought - what about a municipal income tax, levied on any income earned at an employer there? That way, people who commute into the city would pay their fair share towards the city that they depend on for employment. However, I don't think Ontario (or any other province) allows cities to do that today, though this article states that it was allowed before the world wars, and is still collected by many cities in Europe.

- In Massachusetts, where they aren't so afraid of income taxes, they've added a new tax bracket for incomes above a million dollars, which among other things will enable them to fund school lunches for the entire state. Something to learn from.

- In that other M state with four syllables, a mistrial has been declared in what appears to be a racially motivated shooting of a FedEx driver, because the police withheld key evidence against the suspects. Supposedly this was done in error, though one could be forgiven for wondering if it was intentional given Mississippi's reputation.

- Trump must be really scared if he's actually listening to his lawyers' advice to shut the hell up about the Georgia case.

- A municipal councillor in the RM of Springfield has been suspended for saying the quiet part out loud.

- Uh-oh, there are signs of a new COVID wave, and the tweaked boosters aren't available yet.

- The MLCC strike continues; meanwhile scabs are being offered $20 an hour. It was just mentioned on the radio that MPI staff have also voted to strike, though I can't find an article on this yet.

- Hydrogen fuel cell cars are losing the battle with battery electric vehicles. They still have some folks in their corner, though, perhaps because a lot of the hydrogen used in them is made from natural gas.

News roundup, 17 Aug 2023

- Europe's greenhouse gas emissions fell by 3% in the first quarter of this year, even as their economy grew. So anyone who tells you that's not possible is either lying or deluded.

- In other positive news, the "Inflation Reduction Act" in the US is having a huge effect on investment in green energy, not only there but abroad as well. 

- Counties in Texas have been determined, by their own interim attorney general, to not have the power to unilaterally ban wind farms. This is good news, but puzzling. Is their AG a "not totally crazy" Republican? Or is she worried that this could set a precedent that could be used by a more urban county to, say, restrict firearms?

- More difficult, though, is the fact that much of the world's remaining fossil fuel reserves will have to be left in the ground in order to limit the scale of the disaster that is climate change. Such a measure will cost investors trillions of dollars, and they won't give up easily on that.

- On the wildfire front, nearly 22,000 people are being evacuated from Yellowknife and surrounding area. Meanwhile, the critical thinking-challenged crowd are buying into absurd conspiracy theories surrounding the one in Maui.

- No prospect for the strike at Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries to be resolved soon. 

- In response to the stabbing attack at the University of Waterloo in June, the university has removed class locations and instructor names from its website to prevent specific classes from being targeted. 

- A tiny 200 ft² unit in Vancouver is now going for almost $2,000 a month.

- A company that contracted with Facebook to moderate posts is being sued by some of their Kenyan employees for exposing them to traumatic content such as beheadings and suicides without proper support.

- Looks like the recent report of a room-temperature superconductor is just so much hot air. Too bad.

News roundup, 16 Aug 2023

- Some info about the Georgia legislation being used to prosecute Trump and his cronies. The prosecutor is a force to be reckoned with; perhaps that's why her state recently passed legislation making it easier to investigate and remove prosecutors.

- In Alberta, the government has vowed to refuse to cooperate with federal efforts to green up the power grid.

- Their Manitoba counterparts appear to be applying the "starve the beast" model to the healthcare system.

- There's a possibility of the Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries strike going to binding arbitration. Meanwhile, the disruption at Teranet, the administrator for the land titles/property registry in this province, is expanding.

- The dramatic surge in road construction in Winnipeg this year is being blamed for a perceived increase in reckless behaviour and outright road rage in construction zones. No doubt this is partly true, but I can't help but wonder if stuff like the "Freedom Convoy" has given the kind of people who refuse to accept any constraints on their behaviour the confidence to defy the rules (like, say, the rules that say you can't use a closed lane or drive at normal speeds in construction areas).

- Speaking of the freedumb crowd, a bunch of them just tried to deny people the freedom to take their kids to a story reading because of the way the storyteller was dressed again.

- There has been some controversy over the recent World Police and Fire Games held in Winnipeg recently. One issue some have raised is the inclusion of a Hong Kong police team, given that force's involvement in the recent crackdown on anti-Beijing protesters. A fair question, though if you tried to enforce the exclusion of police forces with problematic human rights record across the board, you'd be forced to rename the event "World Fire Games".

- Speaking of police, a town in Minnesota just had their entire police force resign. Meanwhile, in Kansas, a newspaper that recently investigated the police chief just had their offices raided.

- Not all police are so bad, though. Texas troopers just restrained a politician who interfered with the work of paramedics.

- Yellowknife is now under significant threat from wildfires, and evacuation plans are being made for parts of the city.

- The engineer who designed that bridge in Saskatchewan which collapsed within hours of opening in 2018 has been suspended. Seems appropriate...

News roundup, 15 Aug 2023

- The minister responsible for Liquor and Lotteries is telling Manitobans to blame the union and the NDP for the strike. Meanwhile they're offering prospective scabs $20 an hour, considerably more than the usual starting wage at the corporation. The Stefanson government would of course rather you ignore this as well as their continued mismanagement of healthcare and focus on their dog whistles about Wab Kinew.

- Burnaby is launching their own municipal housing authority. Given that Metro Vancouver is the third most unaffordable in the world, this is sorely needed.

- A court in Montana has ruled in favour of a group of young people who say the state has violated their right to a “clean and healthful environment” by not considering the climate impacts of energy projects.

- New research shows that crops and solar panels actually mix nicely, contrary to the FUD coing from rightwing populists. Meanwhile, solar and wind have the potential to revolutionize electricity supply in Africa. The rollout of solar is also running ahead of schedule in the EU. Definitely good news, as is the fact that a record number of solar panels and heat pumps have been deployed in the UK.

- On the other hand, climate change itself is also running ahead of schedule, and in fact may be even more of a threat to food security than previously thought.

- The death toll in Maui continues to rise.

- A plastic bag ban in Kenya is failing due to a thriving black market in bags.

- Yet another indictment for Donald Trump, and this time it's state charges, which means that presidential powers of pardon do not apply. And the state's RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) law is actually broader than its federal counterpart.

- In New York City they now have robotic window washers. Which could be considered a positive thing (not putting workers in harms way) or a negative (putting them out of work).

- A school trustee in Conroe, Texas claims that a student was "traumatized" by seeing a poster showing people of different races holding hands. Yeah right...

- Where did the Russians get the idea to make such heavy use of mercenaries like the Wagner Group? Well, they had the example of the Americans and Blackwater to follow... 

- Can the resurgence of industrial policy be sustained in the face of large amounts of sovereign debt? Naysayers don't think so, but it remains to be seen.

 

News roundup, 14 Aug 2023

- Mixed news on the COVID-19 front. It's not as big a risk as it used to be, but it's not going away either, and continues to be a real threat to some people.

- Ukraine is investigating allegations that military recruiters accepted bribes and helped military-eligible men escape from the country.

- The death toll from the Maui fires continues to rise, as questions about the failure to raise the alarm continue. Meanwhile, closer to home, residents of Hay River are having to evacuate by air as their road access is cut off.

- A disconcerting raid on a newsroom in Kansas.

- Alabama is trying to get the Supreme Court to reconsider its own ruling regarding a map of its electoral districts.

- Musk seems to be trying to get out of the proposed cage match with Zuckerberg. Afraid he'll lose, perhaps.

- More charges seem to be coming against Trump.

- Another far-right populist on the rise, this one in Argentina.

- Niger is prosecuting their deposed president for high treason.

- Try as they might, they're going to have a hard time getting commercial real estate to its pre-pandemic heights. 

- Yet another case of an airline passenger behaving badly.

- Apparently the deadly mushrooms that killed three people in Australia came from the store.