News roundup, 28 Oct 2024

- Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko has warned Russia that any attempt to annex his country would lead to war. Belarus has until now been seen as a pretty reliable ally for Russia, but there are suspicions that the annexation of the country is part of Putin's long-term plans. Others scoff at this; some in this Reddit thread think this is just a show for the West, or else Lukashenko trying to keep a door to the West open in case Russia's ambitions in Ukraine are thwarted.

- Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, speaking as the warmup act for a Donald Trump rally in Georgia, gave a rather graphic metaphor for what he hopes a second Trump presidency would mean for America:

“If you allow your hormone-addled 15-year-old daughter to slam the door and give you the finger, you’re going to get more of it,” Carlson said. “There has to be a point at which Dad comes home.” At this point the crowd erupted into raucous cheers.

“Dad comes home and he’s pissed,” Carlson continues. “He’s not vengeful, he loves his children. Disobedient as they may be, he loves them … And when Dad gets home, you know what he says? You’ve been a bad girl. You’ve been a bad little girl and you’re getting a vigorous spanking right now. And no, it’s not going to hurt me more than it hurts you. No, it’s not. I’m not going to lie. It’s going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me. And you earned this. You’re getting a vigorous spanking because you’ve been a bad girl, and it has to be this way.”

Clearly this struck a chord with the crowd. Later, when Trump came on stage, they screamed “Daddy’s home” and “Daddy Don”. Sigmund Freud almost rose from his grave.

It's becoming more and more apparent that close to half of the American population is, to put it kindly, not of sound mind.

- The Washington Post has announced that they will not endorse any candidate for president this year, for the first time since 1988. Reportedly the editorial page editor, David Shipley, had approved an endorsement of Harris, but it was shot down by "management" (presumably meaning Jeff Bezos). The move sparked resignations from the board; the same thing also happened at the Los Angeles Times. This has led to speculation that management is scared of what Trump might do to them if he does win the presidency - or at least insufficiently scared of what he might do to other people.

- New Flyer Industries is significantly expanding their production of electric transit buses. This will enable some buses to be completely assembled at the Winnipeg plant; until now only the shells of the buses have been manufactured here, while the mechanicals have been added at a plant in Alabama. One hopes that some of these buses can be put to use on our own streets...

- A final seat count for BC's election last week is still pending as some 22,000 absentee ballots await counting.

- The robotics industry is now producing farm equipment that can harvest crops autonomously. This will help deal with the shortage of farm labour; it will probably also hasten the depopulation (and resulting decline in political influence) of rural areas.

- Chris Alexander, who served as Minister of Citizenship and Immigration under Stephen Harper, has accused Postmedia reporter David Pugliese of having been a Russian asset since the 1980s. The allegation was made during Alexander's testimony before the House of Commons standing committee on public safety and national security on Thursday.

- A private member's bill introduced to the Ontario legislature by Liberal MPP Karen McCrimmon aimed to facilitate the conversion of vacant office space into housing. Unfortunately the government has shot the bill down; whether this is just the knee-jerk reaction of a government that doesn't want anything done that they can't take credit for, or whether they have a deeper opposition to the idea, is not clear. I could see Doug Ford not relishing an expansion of housing in the inner city, though, as such housing tends to be occupied by people less inclined to vote for his party. Not to mention, a disproportionate amount of Ford's base comes from people who work jobs that can't be done remotely, and some of those people are downright resentful of people who are able to do so.

News roundup, 24 Oct 2024

- Justin Trudeau is refusing to step down as Liberal leader, despite the demands from a growing number of MPs that he do so. Some of the rebel MPs expressed concern with how quickly he dismissed the suggestion; none of this is going to help salvage the party's chances in the next election, or even with rebuilding afterwards.

- In southwestern England, recurring flooding is being addressed by buying out farmers at around £5,000 an acre and restoring the saltmarsh habitat that existed previously. Not surprisingly, this has its detractors, but more of this sort of thing is going to be necessary, since the problem isn't going away any time soon.

- The driver who hit cyclist Rob Jenner in June, then left the scene, has pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing death and leaving the scene of the accident. He was going 159 km/h in a 50 zone. In tangentially related news, police have been cracking down on "stunt driving" to an extent, although it's an uphill battle with these people.

- Winnipeg police had to shoot a dog on Tuesday afternoon after it attacked four people, causing serious injuries to one of them.

- Many polls significantly underestimated Donald Trump's support in the 2020 election. The reasons for this are not entirely clear; one school of thought holds that low information voters are less likely to answer polls, and more likely to vote for the likes of Trump if they do vote. Notably, pollsters did better in the 2022 midterms (less engaged voters are more likely to sit the election out if the presidency isn't up for grabs). Others suggest that the 2020 election was heavily influenced by the pandemic and other factors. Pollsters are changing their methodologies in an attempt to correct for factors like these; the effectiveness of these measures remains to be seen.

- A Cambridge University study has found a significant positive correlation between the number of Airbnb locations in a neighbourhood and its crime rate.

- Post-secondary institutions in red states are having a harder time attracting students from out of state as non-crazy students balk at having to live in such a place.

News roundup, 23 Oct 2024

- Toronto's University Health Network, which includes Toronto General Hospital, Toronto Western Hospital, Toronto Rehab, and Princess Margaret Cancer Centre among others, is reintroducing mask mandates at their facilities. Given the potential for stirring up populist rage, I have to assume that this decision was not made lightly.

- 24 Liberal MPs have signed a document calling on Justin Trudeau to step down as party leader. The document gives a deadline of October 28, but does not specify any specific consequences if he doesn't quit. Nor could it; the party has no mechanism to force him out.

- The Manitoba government is holding off on issuing new licenses for urban convenience stores and gas stations to sell cannabis. The Domo chain of gas stations is disappointed, as they were hoping to start selling the stuff; the vice-president of the Retail Cannabis Council of Manitoba is applauding the move, however. Certainly there's no shortage of places to buy dope right now. There are, however, security issues with some of the stores; while the product is generally stored in a secure location like a safe, that doesn't stop would-be thieves from doing a lot of damage to the stores before they give up. I'd have expected that actual armed robbery would be a bigger risk, especially as those stores likely do a lot more business in cash than most retailers.

- Ontario premier Doug Ford insists on pushing ahead with his plan to force cities to remove bike lanes on major streets. In actual fact bike lanes are more of a solution to congestion than a problem, but Ford doesn't know that or, more likely, doesn't care - populists like him aren't interested in actual solutions so much as being seen by their base to be doing something. And the suburban sheeple who flock to Ford don't want to be confused by the facts.

- I've often been critical of Winnipeg city councillor Brian Mayes here due to his efforts to please NIMBYs in regards to density issues, but I do have to give him credit for at least raising the issue of natural gas heating. He's introducing a motion at council's Climate Action and Resilience Committee calling for city staff to produce a report on methods of phasing out natural gas in new and existing city buildings.

- After all regular ballots were counted, the NDP had a lead of only 20 votes in Juan de Fuca-Malahat. Mail-ins have yet to be counted; if the difference is less than 100 votes after that, a recount is automatic.

- Victoria's city council is asking the provincial government to take action to support the city's small businesses. One of the things they are requesting is for the province to "consider impacts to downtown Victoria when making decisions about remote and hybrid work arrangements". Interestingly, someone in this Reddit thread alleges that the city council did not make similar directives to their own staff; presumably that's because negotiations with city workers are their problem, while negotiations with provincial workers aren't.

- A 14 year old from Orlando, Florida whose best friend was an AI chatbot shot himself with his stepfather's handgun. His mother blames the chatbot for his death (rather than, say, blaming her husband for leaving a .45 where a troubled teen could find it).

News roundup, 22 Oct 2024

- Control over BC's legislature remains up in the air due to several recounts, but one thing that's clear - the knuckle-dragging loogans did way better than they ought to, and not just in the purely rural ares either. Several Conservatives singles out by the NDP for their extreme views won their seats, including Brent Chapman (the guy who made overtly racist social media posts about Palestinians and suggested that several mass shootings were hoaxes), Jordan Kealy (who promoted the "chemtrails" conspiracy theory), and Jody Toor (who claimed to be a "medical doctor" on the basis of a degree from a crackpot online institution in Hawaii). On a more positive note, Chris Sankey (who claimed that vaccines cause AIDS and claimed that the Jan 6 riot was a hoax) appears to have been defeated, and Bryan Breguet (who questioned the existence of anti-indigenous racism) is still awaiting the results of a recount. Nonetheless, it all brings to mind the quote sometimes attributed (questionably) to Winston Churchill, that "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter".

- Related to that Churchill "quote", Liberal MP Sean Casey, who has joined the growing ranks of those calling for Justin Trudeau's resignation as party leader, said something interesting on the subject:

Voting is an emotional exercise. It’s not based on logic. If it was based on logic and rational thinking, we’d be 20 points up, not down. But there’s been baggage accumulated. People have tuned him out.

There's definitely something to that; while "20 points up" is overstating the case given the rather mediocre performance of the government, decent people voting on the basis of reason and logic would not be going for the Poilievre Conservatives.

- In the US, the ever-gullible masses are in thrall to absurd claims about the recent hurricanes, from claims about Biden and Harris' supposed indifference to the plight of victims to the idea that some nebulous "they" (presumably including Democrats, Jews, etc) are controlling the hurricanes. Of course stuff like this is not without consequence - one man has been arrested for threats against FEMA workers (he is of course unrepentant, like most such people).

- Switzerland, despite their longstanding neutral stance, has signed onto the European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI), which seeks to build a unified air and missile defence system across the European subcontinent. They reserve the right, however, to withdraw their participation in the event of an actual war.

- A baseless story being circulated that alleges that Tim Walz sexually assaulted one of his students seems to be getting a boost from Storm-1516, a network affiliated with the so-called Internet Research Agency and believed to operate out of St. Petersburg. They've previously circulated stuff about Kamala Harris as well; stuff like this makes claims that Russia's leaders are becoming more leery of Trump seem like wishful thinking.

- Winnipeg councillor Brian Mayes, who never met a NIMBY he didn't like, continues to cozy up to those people; he's now demanding a map of every location in the city that would be impacted by the proposed "as of right" zoning (which would enable buildings of up to 4 storeys to be constructed without a hearing as long as they're within 800 metres of a transit route).

News roundup, 21 Oct 2024

- BC's election is too close to call, with the results in several constituencies riding on mail-in and out-of-district ballots that haven't been counted yet. Mail-ins aren't expected to be counted until the 26th; it's a safe bet that if the Conservatives end up losing they'll use the delayed results as "evidence" that the election was rigged. And it's more than a bit disturbing that over 40% of the electorate (probably much higher in rural areas) voted for a far-right extremist party. And in the last week of the campaign, someone cut Nathan Cullen's image out of a lawn sign and suspended it from a makeshift gallows; sadly that seems to be fairly reflective of the way that constituency is going, given that Cullen was defeated on Saturday.

- Winnipeg mayor Scott Gillingham is proposing a new emergency service that would specialize in mental health issues. Given that the police have a rather spotty track record in that area, plus the fact that even the sight of a police uniform can be a problem for some people in crisis, this may be a good idea.

- The impact of climate change on heavily populated areas such as the Middle East and south Asia are hard to overstate. Many places are running out of water as rainfalls decline; some people will die in place but many more will become what might be called "environmentally displaced people". Some use the term "climate refugee", but they don't fit the current international definition of refugee, and the chances of the definition being updated and thus obligating signatories to the refugee convention to accept them are pretty slim. Incidentally, some historians believe that the so-called "Sea Peoples" linked to the Late Bronze Age collapse were environmentally displaced people. Think about that, then maybe read Christopher Priest's novel Fugue for a Darkening Island...

- The US Department of the Interior has approved a 2 gigawatt geothermal energy site in Utah. The operation is expected to generate enough electricity to supply over 2 million homes.

- A survey of employers found that many of them are having a hard time implementing a return-to-office policy. 75% say that they are having problems getting workers to comply with RTO mandates. Interestingly, only about half say that they "definitely" or "probably" will be stricter in their enforcement of such mandates.

- Several Republican AGs in the US are suing the FDA for approving online sales of the abortion drug mifepristone (also known as RU-486). One of the harms they're claiming is rather interesting - there has been a drop in births among kids aged 15 to 19, which has the potential to slow population growth and thus potentially result in states like Missouri "losing a seat in Congress or qualifying for less federal funding". Yeah, they said one of the quiet parts out loud.

- An RCMP officer in Burnaby has finally been forced out after having spent more than half of his career on paid leave for reasons the force seems reluctant to discuss in any detail.

News roundup, 18 Oct 2024

- The Manitoba government has hired former federal cabinet minister Lloyd Axworthy to study the feasibility of relocating the rail yards that separate Winnipeg's city centre from the North End. The matter has been mooted for years, but perhaps the closure of the Arlington Bridge has added a sense of urgency to the matter. Axworthy was involved in the relocation of CN yards from the Forks in the 1980s while serving as transport minister; notably, though, that was when CN was still owned by the federal government.

- The Kinew government is also scrapping the previous government's plans to use a P3 model to build schools. Part of the concern is over the terms seen in previous P3 agreements in other provinces; because the private partners retained a stake in the schools, they put undue restrictions on the use of classrooms (including prohibiting teachers from putting art on classroom walls) - not to mention the fact that many such arrangements ended up costing considerably more than the traditional way of building schools once maintenance is factored in.

- Fort Whyte MLA Obby Khan and Churchill hotel owner Wally Daudrich will be competing for the Manitoba PC leadership - assuming that Daudrich passes the party's vetting (Khan has already been approved).

- The Green Party's candidate in Steinbach, who withdrew from the race shortly before last year's election, was found to have forged two signatures on her nomination papers.

- An organization calling itself "West Coast Proud" has spent tens of thousands of dollars on social media ads promoting the BC Conservatives and attacking the NDP. Turns out that the people behind it are Albertans trying to influence the outcome of another province's election.

- The BC Conservatives have finally released their platform on Tuesday, only days before the election (and after a record number of people had already voted in advance). Turns out that they plan to run a deficit of nearly $11 billion in their first year, higher than the NDP or the Greens. Their candidates also have a poor record for turning up at all candidates debates, and one of them has apparently been calling herself a medical doctor based on her doctorate in "integrative medicine" from an institution called "Quantum University" in Hawaii. I suspect the College of Physicians and Surgeons would like a word with her about that.

- Christopher Yoo, a 17-year-old chess grandmaster competing in the US Championship, has been expelled from the tournament following an incident in which, after being defeated by Fabiano Caruana, he crumpled up his scoresheet and stormed out of the tournament hall, allegedly assaulting a videographer in the process.

- A woman tore down what she believed to be Israeli flags at a restaurant in Montclair, New Jersey, while shouting "Free Palestine! This is genocide!" Thing is, the flags were actually Greek flags, not Israeli ones.

News roundup, 16 Oct 2024

- The federal government has expelled six Indian diplomats, accusing India of involvement in "widespread violence" in this country. The violence in question apparently includes homicides, such as the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey last year. India has responded in kind, ordering six Canadian diplomats to leave the country.

- BC Conservative Party candidate Brent Chapman is facing calls to withdraw from the race following revelations that he circulated bizarre conspiracy theories alleging that several mass shootings, including the Quebec City mosque shooting in 2017 as well as the Sandy Hook and Pulse Nightclub shootings in the US were hoaxes. He had also made some social media posts in which he called Palestinians "little inbred walking, talking, breathing time bombs". He has also alleged that the UN is somehow interfering in municipal politics. Happily, recent polling from Angus Reid as well as Research Co suggests that BC voters - or at least urban and suburban ones - may be coming to their senses.

- Hacktivists professing to be acting on behalf of Palestinians have claimed responsibility for a cyberattack on the Internet Archive. What makes the archive a legitimate target for such activism is not clear, though the activists seem to be claiming that the fact that the nonprofit is based in the US is reason enough. Seems like pretty flimsy grounds to me; I guess organizations that are actually harming Palestinians have better cybersecurity, though, and they went for the low hanging fruit instead.

- The IDF appears to be using Palestinians as human shields. Not the first time such accusations have been made, but when a paper as sympathetic to Israel as the New York Times reports on them, it's a sign that the evidence is pretty hard to dismiss.

- An American journalist, Jeremy Loffredo, was detained in Israel last week; while he has been released from custody he is barred from leaving the country. The Israelis accuse him of "endangering national security" and "aiding and sharing information with the enemy" due to his having reported on Iranian strikes in the country.

- An auto parts maker, Yapp USA Automotive Systems, is challenging the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board; unfortunately the case is to be decided by the Trumper-dominated US Supreme Court.

- A four-year-old child has died after falling from the 19th floor of a highrise in downtown Winnipeg.

- After a delay resulting from the recent hurricane, Europa Clipper was successfully launched from Cape Canaveral. The probe is expected to arrive at Europa in 2030, in search of evidence of life.