- As expected, the new draft budget for the City of Winnipeg includes a 5.95% property tax increase. The budget includes money for 36 more police officers and 15 community safety officers, but none for the Community Connections facility in the Millennium Library lobby; it also initiates a pilot study to defer residential snow clearing until a 15 cm snowfall instead of the current 10. Even with the tax increase the city will still have some of the lowest property taxes in the country, but that may be a hard sell with a lot of residents. There seems to be little alternative, though.
- Cycling activists in Toronto have launched a court challenge against the Ford government's anti-bike lane legislation, citing the rights to life and security of the person in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Not sure what the chances of success are, but one thing they have in their favour - the fact that the government saw the need to specifically exclude lawsuits for deaths or injuries resulting from the law does suggest that it is not a good thing for the aforementioned rights.
- Doug Ford has responded to Trump's proposed tariffs by threatening to stop supplying electricity to the US. Whether he has the nerve to actually follow through on this threat is another question, though.
- A poll has found that just over a third of Canadians think the response of governments to COVID-19 was excessive. This happens to be in the same ballpark as the baseline level of support for the Conservatives, which shouldn't be surprising.
- FBI director Christopher Wray will be stepping down at the end of Biden's term in January, despite having more than two years left in his own appointment. Trump has expressed the intention to appoint former national security aide Kash Patel; RFK Jr., though, thinks his daughter-in-law Amaryllis Fox Kennedy would be a better choice. Trump is apparently open to the idea.
- One of the more disconcerting things about the climate crisis is that as it proceeds, it causes inflation, not least because it impacts food production and thus increases prices. And because measures to contain and mitigate climate change are expensive, inflation dampens the political will to proceed with such measures, even as they're needed more than ever; instead the sheeple are driven to vote for rightwing populists who tell them what they want to hear. This has the potential to create what some call a "doom loop" where climate change and far-right politics feed on each other.
- Teachers at the London District Catholic School Board have apparently been ordered not to teach certain books by black authors because they contain the N-word. Among them is The Book of Negroes, by Canadian writer Lawrence Hill, who had this to say about the matter. A teacher who spoke to Hill about the matter was subsequently reprimanded.
- A Houston judge has rejected an attempt by The Onion to buy Alex Jones' media empire. Judge Christopher Lopez cited what he considered a "lack of transparency" in the process, as well as an alleged failure to maximize value towards Jones' creditors. It's worth noting that bankruptcy courts are federal courts, and that Lopez was appointed to the court in 2019, so it's just possible that he's not as impartial as judges are theoretically supposed to be.
- Researchers at MIT have found that people are more likely to eat vegan food if it isn't labeled as vegan. I guess some of them are worried that if they eat it they might become annoying or something.
- Tokyo University's website for graduate student applications apparently had a hidden keyword, not visible by looking at the page normally, that made reference to the Tiananmen Square massacre, thus preventing the page from being displayed in mainland China and preventing Chinese students from applying. The university says that they have since removed the offending word.
- The College of Registered Nurses of Manitoba has suspended the license of a man who was found not criminally responsible for killing his parents and attacking a former coworker. Seems like a reasonable decision to me...
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