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.

News roundup, 17 Sept 2024

- The federal NDP managed to squeak out a win in the Elmwood-Transcona byelection. The Liberals weren't so fortunate, losing the longtime stronghold riding of LaSalle-Émard-Verdun to the Bloc Québécois.

- At the provincial level, the Manitoba NDP is facing a bit of awkwardness after Fort Garry MLA Mark Wasyliw was expelled from the party caucus. The party's caucus chair, Riel MLA Mike Moyes, was quoted as saying that this follows revelations that one of Wasyliw's colleagues in his law practice was involved in the defense of Peter Nygard. Now it's possible that Moyes was misquoted, or misspoke himself, but if not then this is a very strange and rather troubling move - even a monster like Nygard is entitled to legal representation, and this should not be seen as a stain on the lawyer who takes the job, much less their colleagues. That said, as far back as last fall concerns were raised by the party about the amount of time Wasyliw would be able to devote to the job of representing his constituents if he remained active as a defense lawyer, and he got all pissy when denied a cabinet post last fall (even though being a cabinet minister while practicing law would have been even more difficult than being a backbencher).

- Charges have been laid against the owners of Spirit Rising House, the private, for-profit foster home provider that was giving marijuana to the kids in their care.

- Amazon is completely doing away with hybrid work. They say they fear that without such measures their corporate culture could be "diluted"; as usual, they make absolutely no mention of commercial real estate. Notably, the demand for office space in Amazon's home city of Seattle is the lowest among major American cities; I have to assume that Amazon owns a fair bit of that real estate and that this is a measure to protect their investment. To be fair, there could be real issues with a crash in that market; there could be ripple effects in the economy as REITs that specialize in these products collapse, and the decline in property values could potentially starve municipalities of revenue.

News roundup, 12 Jan 2024

- The International Court of Justice is now hearing South Africa's genocide case against Israel, calling the evidence "overwhelming and incontrovertible". Naturally Israel does not agree; nor does Germany, who are warning against "political instrumentalisation" of the genocide convention.

- Brazil's environment ministry says that deforestation in the Amazon fell by nearly half in 2023 from the previous year, having been at a 12 year high under Bolsonaro. In other promising climate-related news, grid energy storage (very important to maximize the usefulness of renewables) has been growing by leaps and bounds in the US, and Spain is looking to raise power utilities' investment limits to facilitate the greening of the grid. And a Massachusetts startup claims to have found a way to produce carbon-neutral cement.

- Donald Trump is flailing helplessly and contradicting himself trying to evade criminal responsibility for the Capitol riot. Three years ago, when trying to get the courts to overturn the election result, he claimed, in the US Supreme Court no less, that he "seeks to intervene in this matter in his personal capacity as a candidate for reelection", but now he's saying he was acting in his capacity as president to ensure the election was fair. Doubtless the MAGA crowd will not notice the contradiction (or care), but hopefully swing voters will. Meanwhile even some evangelical leaders admit to having qualms about him, but they seem to be losing control of their flock on the matter.

- Hot on the heels of reports of Alabama prisons harvesting the organs of their deceased inmates, 215 bodies have been found in unmarked graves behind a jail outside Jackson, Mississippi.

- Vienna was recently declared the world's most livable city by The Economist, and part of the reason is that it's far more affordable than otherwise similar cities. One of the reasons? Public housing. There's a lesson there, if our own federal, provincial, and municipal leaders are willing to listen.

- The Manitoba NDP's caucus chair, Mike Moyes, is filing an ethics complaint against Heather Stefanson and Jeff Wharton over the attempts to ram through the Sio Silica mining deal during the transition period.

- Security cameras on a business in Regina showed a man by the side of the road after getting off a bus at about 8 PM, waving feebly for help, for several hours as motorists drove by without stopping while the temperature dropped to -8°C. Eventually, at about 3:30 in the morning, a cyclist noticed his plight, stopped, and called emergency services, but it was too late; he was already dead.