News roundup, 6 Nov 2024

- And it's over. Donald Trump has defeated Kamala Harris and will be going back into the White House. I plan to say more about this later. It's worth noting, though, that while several false bomb threats were called into polling stations in swing states, that almost certainly was not the reason. It may not even be possible to blame the electoral college, as unfair as that institution is - as of this post, Trump is leading in the popular vote as well. No, unfortunately much of the blame for this debacle lies squarely on the American people.

- A team of outreach workers and volunteers is conducting a "street census" of homeless people in Winnipeg, while St. Boniface Street Links is trying to finalize a deal with the City of Winnipeg to lease a city-owned building as a service centre for the homeless community. Contrast the situation one province to the east, where as mentioned previously mayors of several cities in Ontario are calling for the provincial government to use the notwithstanding clause to enable them to clear out encampments, much to the chagrin of activists (and indeed anyone capable of recognizing that such measures are not going to cause homeless people to disappear).

- There's been yet another violent carjacking in Winnipeg; this one occurred in Elmwood and the victim was a delivery driver.

- The Regional Municipality of Waterloo is hoping to move ahead with plans for additional bike lanes, even as the provincial government prepares to make it more difficult. Perhaps they hope to get them under the wire before new provincial legislation comes into effect to make it more difficult, and that Doug Ford won't use a special regulation to force their removal simply because he doesn't have to drive down those streets.

- Three people have been charged after violent protests at places of worship in Brampton, Ontario. One happened at a Hindu temple while another was at a Sikh gurdwara. Of course, Pierre Poilievre can't help but say that it's all Trudeau's fault.

News roundup, 5 Nov 2024

- The polls in today's election remain extremely close. The margin of error is big enough that either candidate could win a healthy majority of electoral votes. Notably, Harris needs to win the popular vote by 2.1 points in order to have a realistic chance of actually winning the Electoral College - and she'd need to beat Trump by 4.5 points in order to have a landslide. One of the things to worry about is that if Harris' margin of victory is narrow enough that a single state could make the difference, Trump's pawns in the Supreme Court could decide to award the election to him.

- Besides the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, numerous other American newspapers have declared that they will not be endorsing any candidate. More interestingly, there seems to have been a precipitous drop in endorsements since 2016. Admittedly, there were signs of a downward trend before then (and in and of itself it might not even a bad thing), but it's really taken off since Trump first rose to the presidency. Now some of this might come down to newspaper owners preferring to avoid paying taxes, and so papers that might previously have endorsed the Republican candidate might just avoid an endorsement since endorsing Trump looks so darned bad. But it's noteworthy that among papers that have stopped endorsing candidates, a disproportionate number of them were papers based in states that Trump won and which had endorsed Clinton in that election. It sure looks like the papers are downright scared of Trump... or rather of his supporters. Which makes sense given that Trump recently said at a rally that he wouldn't mind if a few journalists got shot...

- Murray Sinclair, groundbreaking judge and senator, has died at the age of 73. A member of Peguis First Nation, he became Manitoba's first indigenous judge (and the second in Canada) in 1988, presiding over the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry in 1988 and later the Truth and Reconciliation commission before being appointed to the Senate in 2016.

- The newly elected BC legislature now faces the task of selecting a speaker. This is a tricky matter, as the speaker does not vote on bills except to break a tie, and they are constrained by convention on how to vote on such matters (essentially, they vote to preserve the status quo, so on first and second readings they vote yes to preserve debate, while on the third reading they vote no unless it is a confidence matter, in which case they vote yes). And if an NDP MLA is chosen as speaker, the NDP will have a minority government in all but name; they'll need the support of the Greens (or the Cons) to pass anything beyond a budget. Meanwhile the Cons are fulminating over an apparent error that resulted in a box containing 861 ballots not being counted on election night. It should be noted that this occurred in the constituency of Prince George-Mackenzie, a riding that the Cons won by over 5,000 votes. A smaller, yet potentially more consequential error occurred in Surrey-Guildford, in which 14 votes were initially overlooked in a constituency that the NDP held by only 27 votes. Of course the Cons will continue to scream malfeasance regardless of what any future inquiries reveal, because that's what they do.

- There's been another violent carjacking in Winnipeg, in which the driver was hit by his own vehicle after being bear-sprayed. The vehicle was later recovered but the suspect remains at large.

- Manitoba's Independent Investigation Unit, which is supposed to investigate potential criminal activity by police officers, has recommended no criminal charges for a Winnipeg cop who failed an alcohol screening after being uncooperative with RCMP officers who pulled him over near Rennie. I guess most of the members of the IIU still have to drive to work and thus are vulnerable to police harassment...

- A man who ran his truck into a march for residential school survivors after making racist threats towards the marchers has avoided jail, instead receiving a 9-month conditional sentence and a 12-month driving prohibition.

- I can't say I've ever seen a Hallmark movie (some of which are made right here in Winnipeg, incidentally). Those whose judgment I trust generally seem to think that they constitute a high crime against the cinematic arts. Others might disagree, but I think even those people could agree that overtly ageist casting policies are worthy of disapproval.

News roundup, 4 Nov 2024

- A new social media trend is calling on people to "cancel" the votes of more rightwing family members by voting for the Democrats. The Harris campaign, and others supporting them such as the Lincoln Project, are getting involved in the trend, with ads like this one that remind women that their husbands will never know who they actually voted for; not surprisingly rightwingers are having a conniption about this representing the "downfall of the American family".

- In response to last year's Supreme Court ruling which says that municipalities can't evict homeless encampments from public land if there's not enough shelter space for the people living there, the mayors of thirteen Ontario municipalities have called on Doug Ford to use the notwithstanding clause to override this decision.

- Even as a bill to limit cities' ability to build bike lanes works its way through the Ontario legislature, the Ford government is not waiting; they're moving forward with a regulation that specifically orders the removal of bike lanes from three major streets in Toronto; these YouTubers suggest that those streets might be the ones used by Doug Ford for his commute to Queen's Park from his home in Etobicoke. It won't actually solve congestion, of course, but at least Ford won't have to watch people on bikes whizz by as he steams in traffic.

- Winnipeg city councillor Vivian Santos, in her role as chair of the community services committee, questioned whether the city can afford the approximately $260,000 a year budgeted for picking up needles and other sharp objects in playgrounds. The fact that this is something they'd consider cutting is a sign of desperation. Talks are on with the province about possibly empowering the city to levy new taxes; certainly something has to be done. The city is studying the impact of some possible new taxes, including on such things as alcohol and online deliveries; curiously there is no mention of an income tax, gas tax, or sales tax among the proposals.

- A welcome sign in the lobby of Montreal's city hall will be removed following criticism of the inclusion of a picture of a woman in a hijab on the sign.

- Someone in Calgary's Bowness neighbourhood thought it would be cool to leave out a bowl of disposable razors for Halloween, with a sign saying that they couldn't afford apples "because of Trudeau".

News roundup, 1 Nov 2024

- There is a long history of the UK Labour Party sending volunteers to Democratic campaigns in the US (as well as the Conservatives and other rightwing parties sending volunteers to Republican campaigns). Now, though, Donald Trump's campaign is calling it "blatant foreign interference" and has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission.

- The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) held its annual meeting in Hobart this week. Unfortunately every substantive proposal put forward, including the extension of existing measures for the conservation of krill, was vetoed by Russia and China.

- Apparently Donald Trump has promised RFK Jr. control of several public health agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services as well as the Department of Agriculture, if he wins next week. As if there weren't enough other reasons to stop Trump..

- A Republican super-PAC, called Badger Values PAC, is contributing money to Jill Stein's campaign in Wisconsin. Sounds like the Republicans are borrowing a page from Gary Filmon's book.

- A coalition of 17 states, led by Ohio, is challenging California's right to regulate air pollution in the US Supreme Court. Prospects for a reasonable decision are not good. And speaking of the court, they could also be called upon to decide on a disputed presidential election, which is not reassuring. Biden should have enlarged the court while he had the chance.

- A group of American and Italian researchers have discovered a strain of cyanobacteria (often called "blue-green algae") that holds some promise for carbon sequestration. The particular strain, which has been nicknamed "Chonkus", is quite dense, and thus could either sink to the bottom of the ocean, (thus taking a lot of carbon down to a place where it wouldn't be liberated quickly) or be made into pellets that could potentially be used to make useful materials. To be clear, carbon sequestration on its own isn't going to be enough to solve the problem, but it could at least make things less bad than they will otherwise likely be in a few decades.

- Not only do many authoritarian governments have policies that exacerbate rather than mitigate climate change, the disasters resulting from climate change often help authoritarians win power. And the worst part of it is that when things get really bad, tackling the situation sufficiently to keep civilization alive will probably require some policies that we generally associate with authoritarianism.

News roundup, 31 Oct 2024

- An 18-year-old Florida resident has been arrested for threatening Democratic activists with a machete outside a polling station.

- Polymarket, a blockchain-based platform where bets can be placed on election outcomes, has confirmed that a single individual, using four different accounts, has bet $28 million on Donald Trump winning the US presidential election. This represents more than 1% of all bets on the outcome. The trader in question has not been publicly identified except by their accounts. The platform is currently giving 63% odds of Trump winning, considerably higher than poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight, which gives Trump a 52% chance. Some Redditors are speculating that this simply reflects the biases of those who bet on these things; betting sites tend to skew male, and this one is crypto-based which also skews male. Hopefully this is the case...

- Pierre Poilievre is whining that it would be "not fair" for the Liberals to replace Trudeau as leader before the next election. I guess he's concerned that it might force the Cons to actually talk about policy, which is something of a weak point with that party.

- University of Pennsylvania economist Benjamin Keys suggests that the growing risk of climate related disasters should encourage people to reconsider whether it's a good idea to buy a house, at least if you live in a high-risk area. Given that insurance and property taxes have the potential to increase very suddenly, and that insurance might be difficult or impossible to obtain in the future, it might be safer to rent in such places.

- Mount Fuji has seen no snow at all this fall, the first time that this has occurred in the 130 years since detailed records began.

- Peg City Car Co-op, with the help of the Assiniboine Credit Union, is working on electrifying its fleet; the credit union is covering the cost of two charging stations to facilitate this.

- Kelly Vasas, the owner of the College Avenue building where all the tenants were illegally evicted this past summer, tried pulling the same stunt at another building he owns in August. It's almost as if the maximum fines for such actions are so small as to be just the cost of doing business for slumlords like him.

- New Zealand's governing coalition recently banned the public display of gang patches. The leader of one of the parties in the coalition, ACT, was asked what he thought about extending the ban to symbols such as the swastika - turns out he objects to the idea. I guess he wouldn't like us to draw the obvious conclusion, though.

- Russia has issued a fine of 2x10³⁶ rubles (approximately 2x10³⁴ US dollars) to Google for restricting Russian channels on YouTube. They probably will have a hard time collecting though.

News roundup, 30 Oct 2024

- The federal government reportedly plans to build a high speed rail link between Toronto and Quebec City, with stops in Peterborough, Ottawa, Montreal, Trois-Rivières, and Laval. Of course, they have little or no chance of being reelected next year, so they don't have to worry about being made to follow through on the plans; instead they presumably hope to blame the Conservatives when the latter inevitably cancel the project.

- Several Liberal MPs are trying to force a secret ballot vote by the entire party caucus on Justin Trudeau's leadership. Such a vote would be non-binding; whether it would have sufficient force to overcome Trudeau's ego is an open question.

- Donald Trump's campaign is disavowing a joke made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe at Trump's rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday, but not the numerous other hateful remarks made by Hinchcliffe and others at the event. The rally is already drawing comparisons with another rally held at the same venue in 1939 by the German American Bund. Some Trump supporters seem to be worried about the optics of the whole thing.

- Japan's ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party, has lost its parliamentary majority in a snap election on Monday. The opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, the only other party to have ever formed government since 1945, was the main beneficiary.

- Winnipeg police are investigating after numerous Stars of David were drawn on the sidewalk outside the Food Fare location on Portage Avenue. The store owner, who is Palestinian, commented that "If somebody went and drew a Palestinian flag in front of an Israeli or Jewish-owned store or business, I think it would be investigated as a hate crime. So in my eyes, this is definitely [one]".

- The University of Toronto's School of the Environment has announced that they will be refusing donations from fossil fuel companies; this is a positive development, but it's noteworthy that Princeton University, which made a similar move in 2022, reversed this decision earlier this year, saying that prohibiting individual faculty members from accepting such funding could be counterproductive (the U of T's policy does not constrain individual faculty members in the same way). And while Princeton says they will continue to divest from fossil fuel companies, they will no longer track their divestiture publicly.

- The city of Brampton, Ontario is trying to crack down on illegal rentals. Awkwardly, a city councillor is listed as co-owner of a house with a suite that was illegally rented out. When confronted about this, he initially denied ownership, then accused "City Hall insiders" of "leaking" the information.

News roundup, 29 Oct 2024

- The BC NDP appears to have the narrowest of majorities after the absentee ballots were counted in the hotly contested constituency of Surrey-Guildford. However, because their margin of victory was only 27 votes (less than 1/500 of the total votes cast) a judicial recount is automatic. Meanwhile Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe has secured a majority in yesterday's election in that province.

- Several incidents have occurred recently in the US in which ballot drop boxes were set on fire - most recently a couple of cases in the Portland metro area (one in Portland proper, the other in Vancouver, Washington). A superficially similar sounding case in Phoenix is being blamed on someone who set fire to a mailbox in order to get locked up so he'd have somewhere to stay and was thus apparently not politically motivated.

- The two back to back hurricanes that hit Florida earlier this month are motivating some voters, though it remains to be seen if it will be enough to turn the state blue. A promising sign is that young and first-time voters are voting early in large numbers compared to previous years.

- New research on human ability to withstand heat has concluded that the "wet bulb temperature" above which the human body gains more heat from the environment than it loses is more like 31°C, rather than the 35°C that was previously assumed to be the limit. If the global temperature average exceeds 2°C above preindustrial levels, significant parts of sub-Saharan Africa, India, and even China could see mass deaths in heat waves. Note that the 31°C limit is for normal healthy adults; for the elderly the limit could be as low as 22°C.

- The decision by Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos to overrule the paper's editorial board and not endorse any candidate has led to a significant backlash, with over a quarter of a million people (representing about 8% of subscribers) cancelling their subscriptions since the announcement.

- There have definitely been some unsettling attacks in Winnipeg in the last few days. From the university student attacked in her dorm room, to a daylight carjacking in which the victim was hit with her own car, to robbery with a machete, to attacking someone with a machete for the hell of it, or doing the same with a BB gun, we've seen rather a lot of nastiness of late - and, more worrisome, seemingly random nastiness.