- Pierre Poilievre, in classic rightwing populist fashion, is blowing a lot of hot air about "common sense", while making pronouncements about how he'll make life affordable without saying much about how he'd actually do that. Sure, he says he'll kill the carbon tax, but one Bank of Canada study suggests that it only accounts for only 0.15 percentage points of the inflation we're now experiencing. As regards "common sense", every time I hear that phrase I think of a quote floating around on the internet, often attributed to Einstein. That quote is:
Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
Now as with most quotes attributed to Einstein, it's questionable whether he ever said it, at least in those words. But whoever did say it is bang on. Unfortunately, "common sense" is a very effective tool in the populist toolbox.
- A major earthquake has struck Morocco, killing over a thousand people.
- In Winnipeg you can hardly throw a stone without hitting a dope store, but unlike many provinces it remains illegal to grow it yourself, unless you have a medical license. Some are seeking to change this.
- A wide range of Christian church leaders are joining the calls for a proper search of landfills for the remains of missing and murdered First Nations women. Can't help noticing that the leaders of Springs Church, the Church of the Rock, and that one outside Steinbach that kept getting in trouble for flouting pandemic restrictions are not among them. I'm not sure those leaders are really taking "what would Jesus do" to heart.
- Celebrations Dinner Theatre in Winnipeg has shut down permanently only a few days after their staff went on strike. Unfortunate, but if you can't afford to pay your staff a living wage, then maybe you can't afford to be in business.
- A major lithium exploration program has been announced in Manitoba. This is a mixed blessing; lithium is currently critical for the batteries needed for electric vehicles, but it is fairly difficult to extract in an environmentally benign way. I'm still hoping that similar batteries made with sodium or aluminum can be made feasible, which will render the concerns about lithium (environmental as well as availability) moot.
- Despite the MPI strike, you can still take your driver's test, if you're willing to be tested by a scab.
- A school district in Wisconsin that had opted out of Biden's national school lunch program (the only district in the state to do so) on the grounds that it would "spoil" children has backtracked, but only barely. The vote to reverse the opt-out passed 5-4.
- As most people know (though not everyone), animals other than humans don't take the laws of humans into account. (A lot of humans don't either, but that's another story). So when Colorado reintroduced wolves to their state, decades after their extirpation, some of them strayed into Wyoming, and at least one has been killed. Now this was actually legal in Wyoming, despite their protected status in Colorado. What's noteworthy is that Wyoming state officials are severely restricted from providing any information beyond the total number of wolves killed in the state.
- In a lot of countries, including Canada, denying the Holocaust is a criminal offense. Could the same be true for climate change denial at some point?
- The world's longest undersea power cable, running for 765 km (475 mi) between Denmark and the UK, has been completed.
- Noted arsehole Jordan Peterson has jumped on the climate change denial bandwagon. After all, the sheeple who follow him are mostly that kind of person anyway, so it's gravy for him.
- A bit of good news on the plastic front - there's a draft treaty being discussed at the UN level on the prohibition of certain plastics that are generally recognized as harmful. Keeping grounded in reality, the key word there is "draft", but it's a start at least.
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