News roundup, 30 April 2025

- Mark Carney's Liberals won their highest share of the popular vote in decades on Monday, receiving 43.5% of the vote. Paradoxically, the Conservatives also won their highest vote share in decades, at 41%. This means a number of things - most notably, that the Liberals were bailed out by NDP and Bloc voters. How much longer that can continue to happen is an open question. And it means that despite the Liberals' high share of the popular vote, they fell just short of a majority with 169 seats. It also, however, shows that the inefficiency of the Conservative vote masks some pretty strong divisions. If you go to the interactive map of results and click on rural ridings won by the Cons, you'll see margins of victory of 60, 70, or even 80%. And like it or not, those people are not going away any time soon, meaning the Conservative Party will not become more moderate for the foreseeable future. And this in turn means that the NDP will likely go into the next election with their prospective voters pondering the same tactical voting question that they did this time.

- Despite failing to win his own seat in addition to failing to defeat the Liberals, Pierre Poilievre says he intends to stay on as Conservative leader. It's possible that the speech was written before it became apparent that he was going go lose his seat; nonetheless, some party strategists believe that he can and should stay on as leader (possibly asking someone in a rural Alberta riding to step aside so he can run in the byelection). Oh, and one interesting tidbit - by law, Stornoway is reserved for the "Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons" - without a seat, Poilievre may have to move out of there unless he can get back into the House pretty quickly.

- Donald Trump is apparently aware of his impact on the Canadian election. Currently he seems to be twisting this into some sort of perverse pride - "I'm so important Canadians couldn't ignore me". Given his volatility, we'll have to see how this evolves in the future.

- Manitoba's public health officials are trying to build trust with rural communities in the province's Bible belt in the hope of increasing the vaccination rate enough to prevent a full-scale measles outbreak. So far nine cases have been confirmed in the province, as well as four suspected cases with known connections with the outbreak in southern Ontario. Meanwhile modeling by Stanford University has concluded that there is a significant risk of the disease coming back in a big way - along with polio, rubella, and all kinds of other nasties.

- North Dakota's hospitality industry continues to take a severe beating as Canadians no longer want to spend money in a country that has threatened to take over Canada, and perhaps doubly so in a state that voted overwhelmingly for the guy who's making all the threats.

- One of the problems of using generative AI for your front line customer service is that AIs sometimes just make stuff up. People who contacted customer support for an AI-driven coding assistant regarding getting logged out of the app were told that this was "expected behaviour" under a "new login policy". The problem is, there was no such new policy. Stuff like this is not good publicity for any company, but especially when your primary product is itself dependent on AI. Companies are also finding that it weirds people out when an AI answers their call to a customer service line and starts calling them by their name unprompted, as if the AI had been reading How to Win Friends and Influence People or something.

- A woman says she was bitten by bedbugs when staying at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre to give birth to twins.

News roundup, 29 April 2025

- Mark Carney has retained power, but appears to have fallen short of the 172 seas needed for a majority; the Liberals show as leading or elected in 168 seats as of this morning. If these numbers hold, that could still give the much diminished NDP caucus the balance of power. With only 7 seats, though, the NDP loses party status; leader Jagmeet Singh has been soundly defeated in his own riding of Burnaby Central and has resigned as leader. As for the Greens, Elizabeth May held onto her seat in Saanich-Gulf Islands, but her colleague Mike Morrice is behind the Cons in Kitchener Centre, though the results aren't final as of this post. On a more positive note, Pierre Poilievre has been defeated in his riding of Carleton. Full country-wide results may be found here.

- Besides the designs Donald Trump has on the Panama Canal, he's also turning his attention to the Suez Canal. He thinks that American and American-registered ships should be exempt from canal tolls, because Americans are special or something.

- A small ferry in Clearwater, Florida was hit by another vessel which then left the scene of the accident. One person on board the ferry died and several more were injured. From the pictures in that article, the ferry is one of those catamaran ones with a tentlike canopy; it looks like it might be the topmost picture on the ferry company's page about their fleet, which seats 42. The AP story states that "police did not immediately provide any information about the boat that fled the scene", but one ferry passenger in this article described it as a "big yacht". What stands out more to me, though, is the statement that the U.S. Coast Guard and Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission will be investigating; isn't that supposed to be the NTSB's job?

- There has been a significant change in opinion among registered Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents as to how the party's leaders should be dealing with the Trump agenda. In 2017, 74% wanted Democrats in Congress to "work with Republicans" to overcome the divisions in society; now, however, 57% want to see congressional Democrats do their utmost to try to stop them. The party's leadership, though, has yet to figure out what to do about the situation.

- An Irish woman who had lived in the US since childhood has been detained at an ICE facility in Tacoma over past criminal convictions. She had been convicted of drug possession more than 20 years ago, but under the understanding that the convictions had been expunged, she had travelled back and forth between the US and Ireland numerous times without trouble - until now.

- A massive power outage affected the entire Iberian peninsula on Monday; Portuguese authorities are blaming the blackout on extreme temperature variations.

- A Northern Irish rap group, Kneecap, has raised eyebrows after footage emerged of a gig a year and a half ago in which one of the members said "The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP".

News roundup, 28 April 2025

- Polls have already opened in Atlantic Canada. Information about where to watch the results once the polls close can be found here.

- Donald Trump will not shut up about his desire to take over Canada. He'd been a bit quiet about this lately, no doubt being advised about the risk of electing a less friendly government up here, but it seems he can't help himself.

- 11 people were killed and numerous others injured when someone drove an SUV into a crowd at a Filipino community festival in Vancouver on Saturday. The suspect was grabbed by bystanders and held until the police arrived; he has been charged with second-degree murder. The police have dismissed the idea that this was a terrorist attack, and Vancouver mayor Ken Sim stated that the suspect has a significant mental health history, but it's difficult to assess these claims because a publication ban prevents the details from being released.

- The FBI showed up at a Wisconsin courtroom to arrest a man who was in court for another matter. The judge hearing the case, Hannah Dugan, refused to cooperate with them due to the lack of a warrant, whereupon the FBI arrested her as well. Stuff like this does not bode well for judicial independence in America.

- CentreVenture Development Corporation has agreed to fund a study to evaluate the possibility of saving Holy Trinity Anglican Church, which faces possible demolition due to structural issues.

- China has successfully built a nuclear reactor that runs on thorium (more accurately, it runs on uranium-233 which is bred from thorium). It's a small facility, generating only two megawatts, but it's an important proof of concept. Notably, such reactors are much more difficult to weaponize, due to the difficulty of handling uranium-233 to shape it into the kind of structure that can be imploded to make a nuclear explosion.

- Manitoba's Progressive Conservative Party has chosen former CFL star turned MLA Obby Khan as its new leader. Khan will probably poll somewhat better in Winnipeg than opponent Wally Daudrich, though he still probably faces an uphill battle to win the next election.

- The MAGA crowd has created a website, Public Square, which bills itself as "the anti-woke online marketplace" to show Trump supporters which businesses they should be supporting. To their chagrin, the sane crowd discovered the site and has been using it to find out which businesses to boycott.

News roundup, 25 April 2025

- Gunfire was reported on the India-Pakistan border following escalating tensions over the massacre of tourists in Kashmir. India accuses Pakistan of shooting first; Pakistan has not commented on whether this is the case or not.

- The Hudson Bay Company, having filed for creditor protection last month, will be liquidating all of its merchandise at the six stores that had previously been spared this fate, after concluding that there was little chance of finding a buyer for those stores. More alarming to First Nations, historians, and UNESCO alike is the prospect of valuable historical artifacts being auctioned off. A court has just ruled that they can go up for auction; a lawyer representing the attorney general's office has requested that a catalogue of the artifacts be provided to him as well as to the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs before proceeding with such an auction.

- Russian authorities say a senior military officer, Yaroslav Moskalik, was killed in a car bombing in the city of Balashikha, near Moscow. The bomb was reportedly detonated remotely in a car parked along a route where Moskalik routinely walked. One hopes the Trump regime is paying attention to the kind of thing that happens when you try to take over a country whose citizens can easily pass for your own.

- Pierre Poilievre uses the word "woke" a lot, but he seems unable, or more likely unwilling, to give a clear and concise definition of it. The things that the word gets applied to can range from common decency to some things that actually are annoying, but if he doesn't want to tell you where his use of the word lies on that spectrum, you can guess pretty easily. He's also warning that the country will "face nothing but despair" if the Liberals win. That might well be true, but current polls suggest that most Canadians recognize that it's going to be even worse if the Conservatives win.

- Peel Regional Police officers summoned to the scene of a dispute at Pearson International Airport fatally shot a man, allegedly after he pointed a gun at them.

- As of the first of May, Manitobans will be legally able to do what residents of most other provinces (except Quebec) have been able to do for years - grow their own pot. One activist, however, thinks the change isn't good enough, because you're only allowed to grow it indoors. He argues that keeping it out of sight reinforces the "stigma" around cannabis. The thing is, even if it were allowed I don't think it would be such a great idea to grow pot outside - it's likely to be stolen anyway.

- Winnipeg's partnership with the 529 Garage bike registry has led to a 19% increase in the recovery rate of stolen bicycles.

- A Russian-born scientist at Harvard Medical School was detained by ICE and had her visa cancelled because she had neglected to declare biological specimens (specifically frog embryos) in her luggage as she returned from France. She says that this was an error, though a Homeland Security representative alleges that she had deliberately concealed them. She fears persecution if sent back to Russia due to her opposition to the war in Ukraine.

- Quebec's language watchdog has ordered Montreal's transit system, STM, to stop displaying slogans such as "GO! Canadiens GO!" on its buses - because "go" is an English word. Undaunted, STM has changed the slogan to "Allez! Canadiens Allez!"

News roundup, 24 April 2025

- Donald Trump is accusing Volodymyr Zelenskyy of jeopardizing the peace deal that Trump claims was "right around the corner", due to his unwillingness to surrender territory as part of the deal. Now it has to be admitted that Trump has a point of sorts when he says that Crimea "was lost years ago", but to expect Zelenskyy to just agree to this as part of a deal for which he wasn't even invited to the negotiations seems more than a little suspect.

- Trump is partially backing down on his threats against China, saying the tariffs will be coming down "substantially". He has also said that he no longer plans to fire Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell. Markets have rebounded somewhat in response to these announcements.

- A substantial number of Canadian snowbirds are selling their winter homes in the US, for reasons that should be increasingly obvious. Florida's housing market is taking a particular hit, given the state's relative proximity to Canada's largest population centres.

- Some unnamed Conservative Party sources suggest that Pierre Poilievre could be at risk of losing his own seat in the riding of Ottawa-Carleton. The party has apparently deployed a lot of campaign workers to that riding and others in the area in recent days. Liberal sources also indicate that their candidate, Bruce Fanjoy, is in a dead heat with Poilievre.

- A Swedish company, Candela, has set a new speed and range record for an electrically powered vessel. The P-12 is a hydrofoil developed for use as a ferry, with a range of 40 nautical miles and a top speed of 25 kt. All this with a battery less than twice the size of the ones in some electric cars. The main downside is that it only has the capacity for 30 passengers.

- Gunmen opened fire on tourists in Indian-controlled Kashmir, killing 26 people and wounding 17. The Indian government is blaming Pakistan for the attack, and has taken a number of measures, the most significant of which may be the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty. Several Pakistani officials warn that the unilateral suspension of the treaty is a violation of international law; an advisor to Pakistani prime minister Shehbaz Sharif went further, calling it an "act of war". This is not the kind of talk you want to hear in a dispute between two nuclear powers.

- A fund created by the Stefanson government in 2023 to subsidize WestJet flights between Winnipeg and two American cities (Los Angeles and Atlanta) has run out. Given the current political climate in the US, the Kinew government has no desire to top it up (myself, I wouldn't be in favour of doing that even under better circumstances). In any case, the demand for flights to the States is tanking; WestJet is reorienting their plans to offer more flights to Europe instead.

News roundup, 23 April 2025

- Marty Morantz, the Conservative candidate in Winnipeg West, says that the vandalism of several of his campaign signs is "antisemitic" in nature. Now I'm not going to endorse sign vandalism in general; it's petty and not very effective. Looking at the text of the article, though, all we see is this:

Some of the messages spray-painted over the signs include the words "traitor," "con men" and a slur for people with mental disabilities. The candidate's face in some of the signs was also defaced with a toothbrush mustache and haircut resembling Adolf Hitler's.

Now the only thing in there that could even conceivably be considered antisemitic is the alteration of his face to look like Hitler - but it's far from obvious that this was done because Morantz is Jewish as opposed to, you know, running for the Conservatives (who aren't Nazis per se but their followers are increasingly moving in that direction). Of course there's a school of thought that says the intent of an action doesn't matter as far as racism is concerned; as long as your actions cause a member of a minority group distress (or as the kiddies say, "trauma"), you've committed a racist act. I suspect a lot of people who subscribe to that view are going to be very quiet about this, given who the target was (and I don't blame them per se, but it seems inconsistent).

- Elections Canada has removed a worker from polling station duties following allegations that the worker was "attempting to influence voters to cast their ballot for the Conservatives" at an advance polling station in Vaughan, Ontario. The worker was allegedly speaking in Urdu to voters, and made comments about voting for "blue". The agency is also investigating allegations that another poll worker, in Milton East–Halton Hills South, took similar action to shift voters towards the Liberals.

- A court has temporarily blocked the Ontario government's order to remove existing bike lanes on three streets in Toronto until he is able to rule on the constitutionality of the order. An advocacy group, Cycle Toronto, had launched the challenge along with two cyclists; a lower court judge had decided not to stand in the way of demolition, but Ontario Superior Court Justice Paul Schabas says that he had additional information not available to the other judge. A ruling on the actual constitutionality of the matter could be months away.

- Elon Musk is cutting back his DOGE work following a 71% drop in Tesla's profits. Whether this is enough to save the brand is another question.

- Russia is using fibre optic drones in the Ukraine war. These weapons are controlled through a fibre optic line up to 20 kilometres in length, and can't be jammed due to not using radio. Ukraine is working on them too, but they don't have as much access to optical fibres as the Russians do. In related news, Russia used a drone of some sort (whether fibre optic or not isn't clear) to hit a bus full of workers, killing 9 people. There are suspicions that the bus was deliberately targeted.

News roundup, 22 April 2025

- Donald Trump has demanded that Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell be terminated for not lowering interest rates as Trump would like. Constitutionally, this isn't supposed to be doable by the president alone; however, the question of what happens if he tries anyway has yet to be answered. Certainly investors are not showing confidence in the situation.

- There has apparently been a noticeable shift, at least in the US, towards bringing one's own lunch to work rather than eating at a restaurant. This is seen by some as a worrisome economic indicator, even a harbinger of a recession.

- Pierre Poilievre is conspicuously absent from the latest round of Conservative Party TV ads. While he's mentioned in one of them, he isn't shown; instead they show old white guys playing golf. The fact that the Cons feel the need to target white male boomers suggests that they're struggling even with that demographic (or at least its urban/suburban component, whose votes they need if they are to have a hope of winning the election next week).

- A bunch of the usual far-right suspects have planned a "Referendum Rally" at the Alberta Legislature on the first of May, figuring that if Poilievre can't win the election it's time for Alberta to secede and join the US.

- Not satisfied to simply cut billions of dollars in federal funding to Harvard University, the regime now appears to have directed the IRS to rescind the institution's tax-exempt status.

- A new Silicon Valley startup, Scout AI, hopes to develop autonomous military robots controlled by the latest in AI technology. I think maybe it's time for these people to watch Terminator (or watch it again, if they didn't clue into the message the first time).

- Commuter trains running between San Francisco and San Jose are now fully electric; this has led to a rapid improvement in air quality in the region, with an 89% decrease in fine carbon particulates ("black carbon").

- An American nonprofit that provides eyeglasses around the developing world is moving its operations to Manitoba due to uncertainties related to Trump's tariffs (their lenses come from places like China).