News roundup, 20 Nov 2024

- A severe storm, with winds up to 160 km/h hit the coast of BC last night, causing widespread disruption and power outages but no deaths or injuries so far in that province, though south of the border in Seattle a woman died when a tree fell on a homeless encampment.

- The Kinew government has presented their throne speech, outlining their priorities for the new legislative session. These include maintaining the Manitoba Hydro rate freeze, the elimination of restrictive covenants that limit competition for grocery stores, and new measures for healthcare, including over 100 new beds and strategies for cutting ER wait times. The rate freeze has raised some eyebrows due to the financial status of Hydro and the need for the renewal and expansion of electrical infrastructure.

- Josh Guenter, the Tory MLA for Borderlands, seemingly couldn't help himself when the opportunity came to make a dog whistle about the presumed ethnicity of the trucker who killed two people near Altona last week. He has apologized for this, but he has a long history of rightwing populism (e.g. his support for the trucker convoy in 2022, which got him in trouble back then but not enough to keep him out of the good graces of the party leadership for long).

- The Danish government plans to convert 10% of the country's farmland back into forest. They also plan to tax livestock farmers for the emissions from their animals. A good start, but some bigger countries need to start doing this. And there's doubtless going to be a lot of populist pushback.

- The US Department of Justice hopes to do some "trust-busting" before Donald Trump takes power; they plan to ask a judge to order Google to sell off the Chrome web browser and impose restrictions on other aspects of the company's business. Google claims that this will harm consumers (but then of course they would).

- Winnipeg city council is debating a proposal to tinker with zoning and enable some of the parking lots around malls to be converted into housing. It's a step in the right direction, at least.

- The City of Winnipeg may be only four to six years away from having no capacity to further expand sewage treatment, meaning that no new residential or commercial developments could be approved. Construction on a new facility with more biosolids capacity needs to start immediately if this is to be avoided.

- Police were called to the campus of the University of Manitoba after a man was spotted with a knife; police say there is no further threat to the public despite not making any arrests. Some students are alarmed and confused by the lack of clarity about the situation.

- The Slender-billed Curlew, a shorebird that was once fairly widespread in Eurasia, has been declared extinct after all attempts to find one since 1995 failed.

- A Russian ballet star who had criticized Vladimir Putin has died after falling from his fifth floor apartment. It's awfully strange how careless those Putin critics are around windows.

News roundup, 19 Nov 2024

- Donald Trump's list of picks for his cabinet was never going to be something sane and reasonable people would like, but some of his picks have been described by critics as "political performance art", choosing some of the most hardline and extreme people as a way of "owning the libs". Choosing a possible sex offender as Attorney General? A possible Russian asset as head of intelligence? An antivax nutter as Secretary of Health? With most countries, the rest of the world could just ignore them or look on with pity, but when it's the country with the world's reserve currency (not to mention the world's largest military), it's kind of hard to ignore.

- A bill before the US House of Representatives, the so-called "Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act", would empower the Secretary of the Treasury to unilaterally declare a nonprofit as a "terrorist supporting organization" and revoke its tax-exempt status. While the majority of Democrats oppose the bill, a significant minority do not; coincidentally a lot of pro-Israel groups are lobbying for its passage, so I think we all know where this is going. The fact that the Secretary of the Treasury is soon going to be an as-yet unnamed Trump appointee in a couple of months does not faze that lot in the slightest.

- Russia continues to make gains in Ukraine, but at a high cost in terms of casualties. They are now cutting back on payments to wounded soldiers. Of course, in all likelyhood all they have to do is hold out until January and Ukraine's weapon supplies will be seriously curtailed, but at least Russia may suffer enough damage to limit their conquests to one country. That's about the best one can hope for, in today's world. Meanwhile the US has authorized the transfer of long-range missiles to Ukraine, and Russia has responded by threatening a nuclear response to any "massive aerial attack". This may be a bluff but Germany doesn't want to take any chances and is unwilling to give Ukraine such weapons.

- The European Union recently brought forward a policy to address deforestation by requiring importers to prove that supply chains for their products do not cause deforestation anywhere in the world. Unfortunately their parliament is delaying the legislation and seems set to weaken it to placate said importers.

- A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 was hit by gunfire as it prepared to take off from Dallas on a flight to Indianapolis. Nobody was hurt, and the aircraft returned safely to the terminal and was removed from service for repairs.

- A student in Michigan who was asking Gemini, the Google AI chatbot, for homework advice was suddenly hit with an admonition to "Please die". One wonders if the chatbot may have been subject to some sort of priming by the 4chan crowd. I hope that this is the case; alternative explanations are even more worrisome.

News roundup, 18 Nov 2024

- The principal of an Ottawa high school has apologized after a song in Arabic, "Haza Salam", was played at a Remembrance Day ceremony. The song's title translates, roughly, as "This is Peace"; many were outraged, however, and claimed that it was "hurtful to the Jewish community", despite the fact that the song's lyrics apparently make no mention of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Of course Pierre Poilievre has jumped on that bandwagon in a big way. Poilievre is also outraged at the fact that Toronto's ceremony included a land acknowledgement and made mention of the discrimination against the No. 2 Construction Battalion, an all-black regiment, during WW1. He has vowed to dismantle what he calls a "woke" culture and replace it with a "warrior" one, so his response to these matters is not a big surprise.

- The topic of free public transit is a popular one among some urbanist types. Interestingly, though, the experience in many places has not been as favourable as you might expect. According to this DW report, the removal of transit fares in the Estonian capital of Tallinn, while increasing ridership, actually reduced the proportion of commuters who used it, and car use increased by 5%. Apparently free transit tends to replace walking and cycling rather than driving, while making transit more crowded and thus less attractive to commuters. There is also a perception among many that free transit makes transit less safe by attracting the "wrong" type of passengers. Whether that perception is fair is a fair question, but largely irrelevant - unfortunately it's perception, rather than reality, that determines people's decision to use transit. What needs to be done is to increase the frequency and reliability of transit, as well as perceived safety - and to make it more expensive and less convenient to drive. I would suggest additionally that reduced fares could be beneficial for lower income folks while not encouraging people to take the bus frivolously.

- A Trump-appointed judge has struck down a rule imposed by the US Department of Labor that would have increased overtime eligibility for some 4 million American workers (many of whom foolishly just voted to reelect the guy who appointed the judge). I guess they don't mind if Trump hurts them so long as he hurts black people more.

- With the federal Liberal government caving in to populism and capping international student enrollment earlier this fall, post-secondary institutions across the country are concerned about the impact on their revenue stream. The University of Winnipeg has implemented a hiring freeze as a result.

- In response to the Ford government forcing the removal of bike lanes, the City of Toronto plans to erect signs telling commuters to blame Doug Ford for any increase in congestion that results. Council was quite divided on the matter, though, with suburban councillors opposing the move.

News roundup, 15 Nov 2024

- Canada Post has been shut down by a strike as 55,000 CUPW workers walked off the job this morning.

- As expected, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been selected by Donald Trump for the key cabinet position of Secretary of Health and Human Services. Critics are calling Kennedy a "clear and present danger" to public health; I don't disagree, though it's a safe bet that anyone appointed by Trump is a clear and present danger to something important.

- As with several recent elections, polls in the 2024 US election underestimated Donald Trump's support by about 3%. This was the case across all the swing states. One possible explanation, of course, is that the kind of people who vote for Trump are also the kind of people who think pollsters are part of the Deep State or similar nonsense. Based on exit polls, it is also apparent that Trump did especially well among the "late deciders". Exit polling has also revealed that white voters to represent a larger share of the vote than in recent elections. This might mean that Trump was uniquely successful in bringing out low-propensity voters, or else that nonwhite voters are becoming disillusioned and not turning out for the Democrats the way they have in the past.

- The Manitoba government has announced that the crackdown on retail theft will be made permanent by providing funding for 12 new police officers. Probably a necessary move; hopefully other equally necessary but less visible measures to address the underlying social conditions will not be forgotten, though.

- The Alberta government has purged the leadership of the Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo). Finance minister Nate Horner attempts to justify this based on efficiency, but this is disputed by others, and the fact that the corporation had been exploring the possibility of creating a fund focused on the transition to a carbon-neutral economy probably had something to do with the matter.

- The RCMP are investigating after hateful letters were sent to staff at an elementary school in Vanderhoof, BC. Authorities are keeping tight-lipped about the content of the letters, but I'd wager that it had something to do with sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) lessons in classes.

News roundup, 14 Nov 2024

- Tom Homan, selected by Donald Trump to be his "border czar", has cited the Canadian border as an "extreme national security vulnerability" and says that there will be "tough conversations" with Ottawa about security. Andrew Coyne, in yet another grim prognostication, predicts that Trump's plans for mass deportations may lead to numerous undocumented residents in the US trying to flee to Canada - and as Coyne points out, "whatever our leaders may say, we have neither the capacity to accommodate them all nor to refuse them – not with a nearly 9,000-kilometre border we have never had to defend until now."

- A strange fact - a significant number of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's constituents voted for her, but voted for Trump for president. To her credit, AOC did not sweep this fact under the rug, but instead went to her Instagram page to ask what they had to say. Their answers may hold a fair bit of significance for the Democratic Party, assuming that they have another chance in 2028. On the subject of counterintuitive voting decisions, it's worth noting that despite often using highly racist rhetoric, Trump actually won 46% of the Latino vote, and 55% of the Latino male vote. Juan Williams thinks that the reason is painfully simple - a lot of Latino men did not want a woman as president and were willing to overlook Trump's racism for that reason. Plenty of discussion in this Reddit thread.

- A Dutch appeals court has struck down a 2021 order from a lower court that would have forced Shell to cut emissions by 45% over 2019 levels by 2030. The court ruled, essentially, that while Shell does have a responsibility to cut emissions, and that developing new oil and gas fields are at odds with this, courts are not empowered to make any specific order (such as an end to new exploration).

- A Tory candidate in Nova Scotia's provincial election, which is being held later this month, is being accused by the Liberals of illegally bribing voters after her campaign handed out Tim Hortons gift cards to citizens.

- The controversy over math requirements for education students in Manitoba is being debated in the pages of the Winnipeg Free Press, with mathematician Anna Stokke facing off against education professor Martha Koch. Koch argues that such decisions should be based on research, which she says supports the changes being brought in by the government. That is all very well except that what we're talking about here is social science research, which is usually a lot less rigourous than the term "research" would suggest to the layperson. That said, keeping the requirements more stringent could have the disadvantage of reducing the number of people going into teaching; maybe we're stuck with a tradeoff between quantity and quality of teachers here.

- Wab Kinew has conducted a cabinet shuffle, splitting some department responsibilities and adding Nellie Kennedy, Mike Moroz, and Mintu Sandhu to the cabinet. Moroz will head the new Department of Innovation and New Technology. Kennedy is the first Muslim woman to serve in the province's cabinet.

- Delays in Ontario's court system are now so bad that the majority of criminal cases are now ending before trial, in order to comply with the 2016 R v Jordan ruling. This includes not just petty crimes but serious ones like sexual assault. The situation is being attributed to a shortage of judges, prosecutors, and actual courtrooms.

News roundup, 13 Nov 2024

- Donald Trump has selected his cabinet-in-waiting, as well as other key advisors. More alarming, though, is the fact that he appears to have an executive order ready to go that would establish a "warrior board" (appointed by the president of course) with the power to dismiss three- and four-star generals.

- Winnipeg has not had any snow since April and relatively little since January. This is expected to change by the end of the month, however. Meanwhile in Fergus, Ontario they just had a tornado, and the northeastern US is extremely dry - so much so that a small fire (such as seen at homeless encampments) can easily turn into an inferno.

- A teenager in BC is in critical condition in hospital with a suspected case of avian influenza; the source of infection is unknown.

- Former BC premier John Horgan has died at the age of 65, following his third bout with cancer. A detailed account of his life and career may be found here.

-The City of Winnipeg has announced that security guards at the Millennium Library will be paid a living wage, currently $19.21 per hour. An earlier proposal to require a living wage for all city employees and contractors was rejected by council last month, however.

- Winnipeg councillor Sherri Rollins is calling for a 30 km/h speed limit for the section of Wellington Crescent where cyclist Rob Jenner was killed earlier this year. Rollins notes that in addition to the aforementioned fatality, there have been a number of other accidents on that stretch, and says that the fence at St. Mary's Academy has been damaged numerous times over the years by vehicles that left the road.

- Due to an unfortunate bit of confusion, surgeons at Winnipeg's Grace Hospital amputated the wrong leg from a patient. Admittedly there was a good chance that both legs would have had to come off eventually anyhow, but still...

- North Korean soldiers fighting for the Russians in Ukraine have gotten relatively unrestricted internet access for the first time in their lives; predictably some of them have gotten obsessed with porn.

News roundup, 12 Nov 2024

- The FBI is investigating after numerous black Americans report receiving racist text messages in the wake of last week's election, telling them to report to a plantation to pick cotton. Alarmingly, many of the texts addressed the recipients by name.

- The Canadian Union of Postal Workers has given notice that they will be in a legal strike position as of Friday, though they have not formally set a date to actually walk out.

- An addictions treatment centre that had purchased numerous units in a condo complex in Winnipeg's Lindenwoods neighbourhood as transitional housing has received a cease and desist order after the condo association took them to court. The complex had a policy against using units for "business purposes", and while acting as a regular landlord was exempt, the court has ruled that this was not and is forcing the centre's clients to leave. Because "property values" or something. Some of the clients had apparently been followed by other residents and had their pictures taken. Well, that's Lindenwoods for you I guess...

- A poll has found that none of the potential candidates for the leadership of the federal Liberals is particularly popular with the Canadian public. Mark Carney scored highest, with 18% of those polled approving of him, but "none of the above" was the choice of 26% of respondents.

- Gwynne Dyer attempts to put last week's US election results in perspective, saying for instance that while the plan to push ahead with oil exploration is worrisome, the global demand for oil is declining, which might limit the severity of such moves. On the other hand Dyer thinks it likely that Ukraine will be thrown under the bus and that Gaza is pretty much finished (then again, Gaza's prospects were dim regardless of the outcome of the election).

- Century-old weather records are tumbling; last Thursday it was almost 23°C in Sainte-Clotilde, Quebec. Slightly more promising is the fact that deforestation in the Amazon has dropped by over 30% compared to the previous year. However, reading the fine print it becomes apparent that it's not as good as it sounds; fire damage is classified as "degradation" rather than deforestation, and there have been a lot of fires.